The University of Delhi, through its affiliated colleges, offers merit-based admissions i.e admissions based on the student’s aggregate percentage marks in 12th board exams, under various streams of studies. They offer this under different faculties namely Arts, Social Sciences, Applied Social Sciences and Humanities, Commerce and Business Studies, Mathematical Sciences, Sciences as well as Interdisciplinary and Applied Sciences. Implementing the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) for all its undergraduate courses, the University offers a wide range of courses for all the applicants in the merit-based admission category.
The Bulletin of Information issued by the University lists the course-wise eligibility criteria for all the courses. The merit list is published course-wise and category-wise and all the colleges and departments adhere to the same. The marks obtained and entered by the applicant serve as the basis for computing for “best four” combination of subjects according to the subjects mentioned in List A and List B.
List A includes the names of all languages and mentions two categories of each subject- core and elective- as compulsory subjects in the calculation of “best four percentage”. The details of calculating your “best four” is covered in another article by DU Express, so stay tuned to DU Express!
Firstly, there are some relaxations in the course-specific eligibility criteria of merit-based admissions. The following is a list of those relaxations as mentioned in the university brochure:
- Applicants from SC/ST category will be given relaxation of 5% in the respective eligibility criteria of merit-based admissions under Unreserved (UR) category. If after giving the mentioned percentage of relaxation the seats reserved for them still remain vacant, further relaxation would be given to a necessary extent to fill up the vacancies in particular courses. The eligibility criteria for such cases then would be the initial pass percentage requirement.
- To determine the eligibility, the OBC applicants will be given relaxation of 10% on the eligibility marks prescribed under UR category. The example to explain this can be as follows: If the eligibility percentage for a certain course stands 70%, then the eligibility percentage for OBC applicants for that same course would be 70% minus 10% of 70% i.e. 70% minus 7%, which equals 63%.
- Applicants from Persons with Benchmark Disability (PwBD) category shall be given 5% relaxation in the course wise eligibility criteria as mentioned under UR category. For example, if the minimum eligibility percentage for candidates under UR category for a certain course is 60%, the minimum eligibility for PwBD candidates will be 57% (60% minus 5% of 60%).
- Applicants from CW category shall also be given 5% relaxation same as PwBD candidates.
- Eligibility criteria for the EWS category are the same as those of the UR category.
However, the admissions under the General category see no relaxation or restrictions. The General Category Admissions will be based on the minimum cut off issued by the University under UR category.
Secondly, List A and List B have certain specified subjects which need to be clarified. The following is the gist of both the lists mentioned in University Brochure:
- LIST A: In two categories- core and elective, List A names all the languages that might be a part of the syllabus in all the boards of school education that exist in the nation. The formatting of the subject mentioned in the list is as follows: English Core/ English Elective and the languages mentioned are: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhili, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Russian and Persian. Anyone of these languages is compulsory for the eligibility for almost all the courses. However, applicants with elective languages get a benefit, in the calculation of “best four combinations” for the minimum eligibility requirement, of 2% while admitting to honours courses in various languages.
- LIST B: This list mentions the general academic subjects that are needed in the combination of “best four” to make it to the eligibility of a certain course. Following is the list of the general subjects from all three streams. The subjects mentioned are Accountancy, Anthropology, Biology/ Biochemistry/ Biotechnology, Business Mathematics, Civics, Commerce/ Business Studies, Computer Science/ Computer Applications/ Informatics Practices, Economics, Geography, Geology, History, Home Science, Legal Studies, Mathematics, Philosophy/ Logic and Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and Statistics. Any other subject other than those mentioned in this list if counted for the “best four” will lead to a deduction of 2.5% for each subject when counting the minimum eligibility.
The University is, however, open to listing any subject as elective for a particular course. In merit-based admissions, the minimum eligibility criteria are decided on the basis of the cut-off that University sets for various courses and colleges. The bulletin mentions separate instructions for Boards other than CBSE to check the equivalence of their subjects with those mentioned in the list. Also, the University mentions instructions regarding marks obtained in the practical and theory separately.
Admissions to the majority of courses are merit-based. For the merit-based admissions, it is compulsory to match your aggregate percentage of “best four” subject according to those mentioned in List A and List B by deducting the penalty of 2.5% for each subject that is not listed in both the lists but is a part of your mark sheet and by adding in advantage, if any.
For the course-wise eligibility criteria under Merit-Based Admissions, read the bulletin issued by the University of Delhi on their official website.
