DU admissions to consider normalised marks instead of percentile, science students worried about humanities advantage
India Today
After Delhi University said that normalised marks would be considered for the admissions cut-offs and not the percentile, science students are worried about the undue advantage to humanities students.
With a higher number of students having largely scored higher marks in humanities papers than in science papers in the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), science students who want to switch streams and be admitted to arts programmes in Delhi University are worried about the competition.
The lower scores, reflecting more difficult papers for science students, is causing anxiety among those who are seeking admissions in arts programmes in Delhi University.
There is no stop on switching streams to be admitted to arts programmes in the university: the eligibility for admission to most of them will count CUET scores for one language and three other subject papers. However, candidates were required to only write the CUET in subjects they studied in Classes 11 and 12.
Archisha, who is eyeing a DU seat, said, “CUET UG results have been out for quite some time now and soon, universities will start counselling process. But the admission policy devised by NTA/UGC is highly disadvantageous to science students who are looking to go into arts and commerce courses."
"Not just that, even in BSc honours courses like for math, statistics or computer science, science students are at a major disadvantage. This is because universities will be using normalized marks for creating common merits for programmes for which all students are eligible, regardless of stream/subject," she added.
“The problem is the use of normalised marks to prepare merit lists when from the very beginning, when CUET UG was yet to be conducted, we were told that percentiles would be the basis of admission, as it is in every competitive exam (jee mains, etc)” she said.
Hiten Dalmia, another DU aspirant, said, “As per a notice of UoD dated September 16, the university will consider the same normalised scores of students of different streams (and hence different subjects) for a given UG programme. The difference in difficulty of any two subjects (with all due respect) is not just an academic or philosophical discussion in the context of competitive exams."
