Mumbai: Marginal rise in cut-offs this year; more CBSE, ICSE students on first merit list

In top city colleges, most applicants who made it to the first merit list belonged to CBSE, ICSE and IGCSE, compared to the state board, as a higher number of students scored in the upper 90s in Class XII board examination.

City colleges released the first merit list for admissions to first year on Monday, showing an increase in cut-offs across courses as compared to last year. The demand for traditional courses such as BCom remained as high as self-financed courses, said college principals.

In top city colleges, most applicants who made it to the first merit list belonged to CBSE, ICSE and IGCSE, compared to the state board, as a higher number of students scored in the upper 90s in Class XII board examination.

In HR College, while the open category cut-off for BCom was 95 per cent last year, this year it is 96 per cent. For BMS, like last year, the cut-off was 90 per cent for students from the humanities stream, 91 for science and 95 for commerce.

Like last year, the cut-offs for other self-financed courses such as financial markets (BFM), banking and insurance (BBI), accounting and finance (BAF) remained above 90 per cent. “We have a sustained cut-off of about 95 per cent or so. There are hardly any students from the state board and they will have to wait for a second list to get admission. This has been the trend in the last three to four years. In terms of placements, students of self-financed courses have not done as well as those of BCom courses,” said principal Parag Thakkar.

In Hinduja College, the cut-offs increased by four per cent. While the cut-off last year through arts stream was 65 per cent, this year it was 69 per cent. For mass media (BMM), the cut-off for arts dipped by two per cent from 82 per cent to 80 per cent, there was one per cent rise in the cut-off for science stream students – 81 per cent to 82 per cent. “There is an increased demand for courses such as BAF and management studies (BMS), along with BCom. BAF is pursued by most since it is interesting and scoring, whereas BCom is pursued by many who are studying chartered accountancy. BMS proves to be a good foundation for MBA,” said principal Minu Madlani, adding that there is a rise in applications this year from other boards such as ICSE and CBSE.

This year, 2.6 lakh candidates applied for admissions to Mumbai University and its affiliated colleges, as compared to 2.8 lakh candidates last year. As candidates apply for different courses, the university has received a total of 7.8 lakh applications this year.

“There is a dip in applications to science courses and that maybe due to the fact that the pass percentage for science stream has also dropped this year. Our counselling for subject combinations begins tomorrow,” said Uma Shankar, principal, SIES College.

Compared to last year, there is not much difference in cut-offs, said Rajpal Hande, principal, Mithibai College. “There is a difference of 0.5 per cent to 2 per cent in cut-offs for various courses. Applications from CBSE and ICSE boards are higher than that from the state board. However, I request students to not panic and be insistent about specific colleges,” said Hande.

The college has introduced a new BCom (Honours) course this year for those specifically aiming to pursue CA and MBA simultaneously, and has achieved same cut-offs as traditional BCom course (89%).

The students can opt for verification of documents and payment of fees between June 18 and 20. The second and third merit lists will be released on June 20 and 24, respectively.

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