How to decode your best-of-four for DU
Different courses have different calculations, which can become daunting for aspirants
SCIENCE
One of the common questions that stump DU aspirants after the cutoffs are announced is the calculation of the best of four score.
DU asks its students to calculate the aggregate of the ‘best of four’ subjects, to see if they qualify for admission . But with different courses having different requirements for calculating best four, the process can get daunting.
“How to calculate the best of four score is one of the most common questions we get,” said Akansha Gupta, an ex DU student who has been volunteering to help applicants. HT spoke to experts to simplify this process for aspirants. For most Bachelor of Science courses, Physics and Chemistry are mandatory. If the course has a Biology component, such as Zoology or Botany (Hons) courses, then you would need Biology too. For some courses Mathematics is mandatory. A few courses, such as Biotechnology, will require both Biology and Maths.
These courses will be used to calculate your best of four score and the scores for these subjects should have been on a 70/30 basis, where 70% of the marks is for theory and 30% is for practical. If it does not follow this division, then the scores will be adjusted to fit this ratio.
MATHEMATICAL SCIENCE
There are four Mathematical Science courses, for which mathematics is mandatory. The best of four for these courses is calculated as the aggregate of your scores in one language subject, Mathematics and scores of two subjects from List A. (See box). If any of the elective courses do not fall in list A, then 2.5% will be deducted from your aggregate.
ARTS
The best of four for BA (Hons) programme is calculated as aggregate of the scores in a language subject, the subject in which you would like to do your honours program in and any two subjects from List A.
If you do not include the subject in which you want to do the honours programme in, or if your electives are not from List A, then 2.5% each will be deducted for these.
COMMERCE COURSES
For pursuing BCom (Hons) students need to have compulsorily studied Mathematics. Students need to use their scores in one language subject and select three subjects from lists C1 or C2 to get their best four score.
However, here there is a catch. If all three elective courses are from List C1, then the student would not face any deduction. But for each subject taken from C2, there will be a deduction of 1%.