Colleges out of seats, students still hopeful

Updated on: Monday, September 05, 2011

While junior college admissions are history for many, colleges are still being approached by students and parents looking for seats. Besides ATKT students and CBSE students who opted for school-based assessment, students who got online admissions are still trying their luck in top-rung city colleges.

“We had close to 100 seats for offline admissions and over the next two days, applications poured in. All our seats are taken now and no matter how much we try and explain this to students, they are still approaching us for vacant seats,” said Kirti Narain, principal of Jai Hind College. Most city colleges are still finding it difficult to explain the situation to students and parents. “Many students took seats, not bothering about the stream. Almost everybody wanted to make it to a reputed college,” said the vice principal of a South Mumbai college. Until last year, Arts seats would go vacant in even top-rung colleges, but students seem to have changed their minds. “Even though there were last-minute withdrawal of admissions, all our Arts seats got taken in the end,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.

However, colleges aren’t the only ones facing withdrawal of admissions. “Our classes for Class XI commenced two months ago, still, some students withdrew to grab a seat in a junior college of their choice the moment admissions went offline, especially those interested in Arts as we don’t offer that course,” said Deepshika Srivastava, principal of Rajhans Vidyalaya, a CBSE school in Andheri (W).

What has surprised principals most is that a handful of students have approached colleges with their original marksheets. “This shows they cancelled admissions without first securing a seat elsewhere. This is a very big problem,” said T A Shiware, principal of Hinduja College at Charni Road.

Exam before Diwali

With no intimation from the education board about unit tests for FYJC students, most colleges have decided to hold at least one examination before they break for Diwali vacations. “We cannot scrap examinations every year for the new batch. And this year we seem to have enough time to teach and then hold an examination,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College in Bandra.

Colleges out of seats, students still hopeful

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