DU online admission starts for UG courses, gets 19k applications on Day 1

The Delhi University received over 19,000 applications on the first day of its first completely-online admission process on Monday for undergraduate courses, an official said.

Principals of various colleges said the first day of the process was a learning curve for them and there were no technical glitches. The university had announced its first cut-off list on Saturday, with the Lady Shri Ram College pegging the cut-offs for three honours courses at 100 per cent.

Officials said they faced difficulties in verifying documents and it took time for them to get into the groove.

As many as 19,086 aspirants applied for the 70,000 seats on offer for undergraduate courses. Out of these, 1,628 applications were approved, while 920 students have made the payment, according to university officials.

The admission process is being held completely online this year amid the coronavirus pandemic and the university has advised students not to visit colleges in person.

Shobha Bagai, dean (admissions), said the admission process started at 10 am. She said there were admission branch officials, grievance redressal officials and nodal officers for each college to assist students in the admission process.

The official said the guidelines to complete the admission process and calculate the best-of-four marks had been uploaded on the website and there was an online calculator to help students calculate whether their best-of-four marks meet the cut-off criteria of the respective college.

Simrit Kaur, principal of the Shri Ram College of Commerce, said: "There were no issues and all applications are in process. No technical glitches were experienced."

"We had a decent number of applications on the first day. Since it was the first day of the online process, we were slow in the initial few hours but we picked up," Kaur said.

She said there were 200 admissions to BCom (Honours) and 135 to the Economics (Honours).

Manoj Sinha, principal of Aryabhatta College and secretary of Delhi University Principals' Association, said: "It's a learning curve for all of us. The admission process is still going on. It's a seamless admission. Candidates can apply through the whole day and we will process the applications."

Sinha said many candidates, who applied under the OBC quota, had not uploaded their current OBC certificate on the portal. He said they asked the candidates to mail the current certificates to the college ID and students were granted admission with a rider that they would have to produce original certificates within 15 days of their admission.

Lady Shri Ram College For Women (LSR) has pegged 100 per cent score for three courses for general category aspirants -- BA (Hons) Economics, BA (Hons) Political Science and BA (Hons) Psychology.

LSR College principal Suman Sharma said they had a hectic first day as a large number of students applied to courses.

"We were also apprehensive of the new online admission process, but even if there were minor issues, we were able to resolve them with the help of university officials who were available on calls," she said.

With the admissions happening all-day long, the principal said they were trying to process the applications and the numbers would be available in a day or two.

Regarding calling the teachers to college, she said the central committee, which comprises teaching and non-teaching staff, were available.

"We had given a choice to teachers that if they want to come to college, they can and we will provide all the necessary infrastructure and if they want to work from home, they can. Teachers from one or two departments were present in college while the rest worked from home," she said.

Hindu College principal Anju Srivastava said sciences and humanities courses did well.

"In the beginning of the admission process, we had virtual meetings for the first and second rounds and it was around 4 pm that the process picked up. We have doubled the number of people in the central committee and there are 15 members. There are 24 courses in total, including the various combinations available under the BA Programme," she said.

The central committee members came to college and some departments also worked from college while an equally good number of teachers worked from home.

"There are few cases of COVID-19 among the immediate family members of some of our staffers, so they cannot come to college. We also do not want to crowd the college with people. Teachers can manage from home," Srivastava added.

She said the teachers were also balancing the online classes along with admissions, adding that it was only possible due to the process being online.

In a related development, the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has established college-wise helpline numbers to address the admission-related queries and help the DU aspirants navigate the admission process with ease.

Offline help-desks have also been installed at the North Campus to address the admission-related queries of students visiting the campus in a timely and effective manner.

DU aspirants can either call on +911127662725, WhatsApp on 9818459062 or send a mail to admissions.du2020@gmail.com and receive immediate assistance from the ABVP regarding any admission related query, the outfit said.

Over 3.54 lakh applicants had applied to the university for gaining admission to nearly 70,000 seats available for undergraduate courses in DU.