Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College on Tuesday released its first cut-off for ten undergraduate courses with the highest being 99.25% for applicants for BA Economics (Hons). This is a marginal increase of 0.50 percentage points from last year when the highest cut-off was set at 98.75% for students from commerce background opting for BA Economics (Hons).
The college has also issued a caveat that for admission in Economics (Hons) students need to score 95% or above in Mathematics. Last year, it was 90%.
Most of the other courses have also seen an increase of 0.25 to one percentage point in the cut-offs. At 99%, the cut-off for BA English (Hons) has gone up by 0.25 percentage points from last year. Students hoping to get admission in the course must also score more than 90% in English Core or 85% in English elective.
Applicants from commerce and science backgrounds, who want to get admission in BA History (Hons) also need to score 99% or above in order to be eligible for the course. For Philosophy (Hons), the cut-off stands at 98% this year for students from Commerce background and 98.75% and 97% for students from Humanities and Science streams.
For the BA programme too, the cut-offs have increased by a percentage point at 99% for students from Commerce and Science streams. For Humanities students, the cut-off has seen been set at 98%. The lowest cut-off, like last year, is for Sanskrit (Hons) at 70%.
The cut-off for BSc Physics (Hons) has also been increased from 96.66% last year to 97.66% this year. For Chemistry (Hons) too, the cut-offs have increased from 96.33% last year to 96.67% this year. For Mathematics (Hons), applicants from Science and Commerce streams must score 98% and above in the subject to be eligible for admission.
The college will begin conducting interviews for various subjects since there will be no written test this year. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the college had earlier announced that it would conduct online interviews of the applicants.
St Stephen’s College, being a religious minority institution, fixes its own admission process and reserves 50% seats for Christian students. After releasing cut-offs for undergraduate courses, the college conducts tests and interviews, which together have a weightage of 15 marks. The remaining 85 marks are decided on the performance of candidates in their Class 12 exams. However, this year, the entire 15 marks will be given on the basis of the interview.
While St Stephen’s College principal John Verghese did not respond to calls, Hindu College principal Anju Shrivastava said, “I don’t foresee any decrease in the first cut-offs compared to last year. This is based on the data that we have seen in media reports so far. If Stephen’s has also kept cut-offs on the higher side, it is likely that the numbers will remain similar or higher than last year.”
