When Rohit More achieved a percentile score of 93.31 (original score 89.69%), his parents thought getting a seat in the Ramnarain Ruia College of Arts and Science would be a cakewalk.
Even the third lists put out by city colleges on Tuesday gave harried students no respite
When Rohit More achieved a percentile score of 93.31 (original score 89.69%), his parents thought getting a seat in the Ramnarain Ruia College of Arts and Science would be a cakewalk. Little did they know that Rohit would not find a seat even in the third admission list.
Ruia’s third list for science closed at a percentile score of 94 on Tuesday. Rohit was not alone. Many students scoring in the percentile range of 85-94 in the Std X examination have failed to find seats in science colleges of their choice.
Parents and students visiting Ruia College on Tuesday left the campus disheartened. Hiren Bose, a Thane resident, had thought his daughter, Purvi, would easily land a seat in Ruia and Kelkar with a percentile score of 94 (CBSE 92%). “She only got a seat in the third list,” said Bose. “But we want her to study in Kelkar as it is closer home. So we are ready to wait for the fourth list.”
Prithvij Pikale, from King George High School, Dadar, was worried sick after seeing Ruia’s third list close at 94. His percentile score is 93.1. “We were happy to learn of the 70:30 quota as it would have given us easy entry into Ruia,” said his mother Supriya. “But the college has not followed it even for the third list.”
Most students we spoke to had scored between 90 and 94 percentile and still not got seats in “good” science colleges like Ruia, Ruparel, and Kelkar. Kunal Shavdia, a student from Ghatkopar, said, “I was so happy to score 91.90 percentile. But now I see little chance of getting admission to the best colleges.”
So happy had Kunal been with his performance that he had decided to apply only to two colleges. “But my parents insisted on a third one. It’s thanks to them that I got admission in at least one college.”
But for many other students in the city, the third merit lists failed to bring any respite. With cut-offs dipping only marginally for science and commerce, many high scorers too failed to make the cut.
At Ruia, where a fourth list seems unlikely save for vacancies, cut-offs came down by a princely 0.43% for science, 0.16% for vocational, and 4.12% for arts. At Jai Hind College, the cut-off for science was down by 0.41%, commerce by 0.5%, and arts by 0.64%. "Very few seats are left, so there may not be a fourth list," said Jai Hind principal Kirti Narain.
At LS Raheja, the cut-off for commerce was down by 1.54% and arts by 6%. The SIES College of Arts, Science, and Commerce did not even declare a third list for science. At the SIES College of Commerce and Economics, the percentile cut-off for commerce dipped by a mere 0.10.
At Sathaye, science closed at 94.4 for the general category and at 84 for the scheduled castes; in commerce, hardly 10 seats remained for SC students with a cut-off of 72.5.
At KC, the science cut-off dipped by 0.65% and commerce by 1%. Arts seats were full and the college will not have a fourth list. "There will be no fourth list in all probability in my college too," said TA Shiware, principal, Hinduja College. Hinduja’s third cut-off dipped by a mere 0.32%.
The scene was no different at St Xavier's where the science cut-off was down by 2%. "In science, 25 seats are left and we expect them to get over by Wednesday," said principal Father Frazer Mascarenhas.
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