Just two days to go before the first general merit list is declared by Maharashtra’s Centralised Admission Process (CAP) committee for first-year junior college (FYJC) admission in Pune, experts said students should brace themselves for higher cut-offs.
Despite fewer students scoring more than 90 per cent marks in the SSC examinations this year, principals predict the cut-offs to be higher owing to the lifting of Covid restrictions, which had limited the choices available for students from smaller towns and other cities. Also, since CBSE and ICSE results were declared late this year, principals said high-scoring students from these boards might have applied in higher numbers too.
The strongest indicator of this trend is evident in the numbers available with the CAP committee.
According to sources in the committee, over 6,000 students who have scored above 95 per cent marks have sought FYJC admission.
“If students are comparing the cut-offs of the last couple of years, then it may not be entirely accurate. We are expecting cut-offs to rise. Firstly, for two years, students from other cities couldn’t apply to study in Pune because of movement and other restrictions due to Covid. Generally, we see a sizeable number of admissions of high scorers who come from other cities. Since we are once again moving to offline classes, we are now expecting these applications again. Besides even in the traditional courses, we have added many options. At our college we started B Com Honours and B Com Fintech, which is a job-oriented course, keeping today’s needs in mind. Hence, we are expecting the cut-offs to increase as the high scorers would flock to the top colleges first,” said Seema Purohit, principal of Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce College in Pune.
There are a total of 317 junior colleges in which 1,11,430 seats are available for which over one lakh applicants have registered, but only about 85,000 students have completed both Part 1 and 2. Since junior colleges have several reserved seats like in-house quota or management quota seats, only 86,612 seats are available through the CAP. Of these, 4,358 seats have already been filled under various quotas.
The first general merit list is expected on August 3 and students will have until August 6 to confirm admissions.
However, even if the students miss their chance by a few marks, not all is lost. College principals advise caution while filling up the preference form, which can be changed after every round of admission, to maximise their chances.
“The biggest mistake students make is unrealistic expectations. They don’t compare the cut-off to their own marks. Even if students make a mistake in the initial round, they can change their preference in the next round, which is what they should know. This year, there is a tool available on the FYJC website, Know Your Eligibility, which helps students to gauge their position. It even gives suggestions based on any special quota or reservation in colleges. Students from the open quota may not get into the merit list of a college otherwise. But it could be that the college has seats reserved for special quotas which that candidate may fall into, like students who are transfer cases. This year, there is a tab for the management quota on the website which students can tick if they are interested. It is not a guarantee of admission but indicates willingness to the college that this student wants to take admission under that quota. It is not merit-based but based on the discretion of the college authorities,” said Rajendra Zunjarrao, principal of Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce in Shivaji Nagar.