Mumbai students can chill, cut-offs ain't shooting up

Most junior college principals are feeling like bad astrologers after the cut-offs for first year junior college (FYJC) bifocal courses rose only marginally despite their predictions of a solar flare. The merit list was announced on Tuesday.

The state education department’s various marks-giving sops such as the best-five and internal scores, among others, were expected to boost cut-offs for most courses. However, colleges offering bifocal courses have seen barely a 1% to .5% difference in cut-offs over the previous year. At most of the colleges, the cut-offs are almost the same as last year.

At Jai Hind College in Churchgate, the 94.54% cut-off for computer science and 94.18% for electronics is almost similar to the 2010 percentages. College principal Kirti Narain said, “I can’t find the reason for this surprising situation. We were expecting them to be really high. But let us see where they stop. Cut-offs of the
last merit list will give a better picture.”

“Also, I think, there are now several colleges offering bifocal courses. The load has been distributed this year, bringing the courses within reach of even low scorers.”

Patkar College also saw only a 1% rise in the first merit list cut-off for computer science, while that for electronics is almost the same as previous year. Principal of the college, MB Kenkare, said,

“I am guessing there are not many students in the 97% to 100% slab. Hence, many low scorers got a chance to pursue bifocal courses, bringing down the cut-offs to a similar range as last year.”

National Junior College principal Dr Bhandarkar said, “There isn’t much difference, just a 1% increase in the cut-offs for both the bifocal courses offered at our college.”

Harsha Mehta, principal of SIES College said, “The merit list declared on Tuesday is contrary to our expectations, considering the good results.” SIES College has seen just 1% rise in cut-offs for both the courses offered — computer science and electronics.
Interestingly, Jhunjhunwala College recorded a marginal .5% dip in cut-offs for the bifocal courses offered by it.

Dip at minority colleges
Minority institutes in the city are even more surprised to see that their offline cut-offs were higher than the online admission round for general candidates conducted thereafter. Minority colleges have separate merit lists.

Mehta of SIES, which has a south Indian minority preference, stated, “After completing the offline admission rounds for applicants under the minority quota, we were expecting much higher cut-offs for the online round of bifocal admissions. However, surprisingly, they are lower than the minority cut-offs, though marginally.”

Usha Mujumdar, principal of Jhunjhunwala College, which has a Gujarati minority preference, had a similar experience.  “Firstly, in our college, cut-offs for bifocal courses are lower than last year. And if we compare them with the offline admissions for bifocal courses, they were a little higher than the online round.”