Ahead of CUET, varsities to tweak admission processes

NEW DELHI: With the Centre set to conduct the first-ever common entrance university exam (CUET) for undergraduate admission this year, universities will be tweaking their admission processes.

While the admission process will completely change for universities basing admissions on performance in the school-leaving exam, the changes will be minimal for those admitting people on the basis of entrance exams.

CUET will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) between July 15 and August 10 in a computerized mode across 554 cities across India and 13 cities outside the country.

Over a million students are expected to participate in the exam. As many as 86 universities are participating in the CUET-UG this year.

The Centre has made CUET score a mandatory yardstick for all central universities while keeping it optional for others.

While NTA will conduct the exam, the universities will be preparing their own merit lists and conduct counselling sessions based on the scores provided by the testing agency.

That has required changes in existing admission process.

For instance, in Delhi University (DU), which has received the maximum number of applications under CUET, over 6 lakh as of now, colleges will no longer prepare their individual cut-off lists.

Till last year, colleges affiliated to DU were releasing their individual cut-off lists based on the class 12 scores of students.

DU registrar Vikas Gupta said that the university will open its portal in July.

“We will receive the CUET score of the students who have applied for DU from NTA. We will prepare a consolidated merit list on the basis of the marks scored by that pool of students, and conduct online counselling to allot seats.”

In Banaras Hindu University (BHU), which has received the second highest number of applications, around 4 lakh, officials said they plan to prepare a merit list on the basis of the scores that NTA provides.

“NTA will provide us the score of candidates who have applied for admission to BHU. We will prepare a merit list based on those scores and publish it on our website and call the students for counselling,” said BHU controller of examinations SK Upadhyay.

CUET WILL BE CONDUCTED BY THE NATIONAL TESTING AGENCY BETWEEN JULY 15 AND AUGUST 10