Mumbai: 2nd merit list out, negligible dip in degree college cutoffs

MUMBAI: The cutoffs in the second merit list for admissions to sought-after degree colleges reduced negligibly with most campuses waiting to understand whether there would be a third list at all for state board candidates.
While most autonomous colleges will have set aside seats for CBSE and ISC candidates, those from the other affiliated institutes are adopting a wait-and-watch policy till aspirants selected in the second list pay their fees.
St Xavier's College has set aside 40% of its seats after accommodating its in-house quota students. Jai Hind College will wait for the ISC and CBSE results before kickstarting admission in all self-financing courses. Autonomous colleges, like NM and Mithibai, too will release their selection lists after the central boards declare their results.
T A Shiware, chairman of the association of non-government colleges, said CBSE and ISC students will suffer because of their boards not declaring results in time, as well as because Mumbai University rushed the admission process. "It would affect candidates with over 90% score the most as most top colleges may not have as many seats after two rounds of admissions," he said.
Head of Jai Hind College, Ashok Wadia said that most of their admissions were based on entrance tests which gave 50% weightage to class XII scores and 50% to entrance test marks.
"We have looked at the admission trends of the past few years and accordingly set aside seats for candidates from CBSE and ICSE boards. Like in the previous years, our second list has moved little," said St Xavier's principal Rajendra Shinde. At his college, admissions for bachelor's of arts programme closed at 91.67%, down trivially from 92% in the first list.
HR College principal Pooja Ramchandani said students were excited to be back on campus. "While we have about 1,000 seats in first-year degree programmes, we have so far filled only about 550 seats. We will wait for the other results to be out," she said, adding: "Apart from the seats set aside, we will ask for more seats if required." Similar was the case with KC College, a part of the HSNC University.
Podar College principal Shobhana Vasudevan said cut-offs at her institute had dipped a bit and it was premature to state whether a third list would be out or not.