St Stephen's College blames marking system in boards for high cut-offs

New Delhi:  St Stephen’s College which has announced a staggering cut-off at 99 per cent for admissions this year sought to put the onus on boards on Wednesday, saying they should work on their marking indicators to make scores more “realistic”. [caption id=“attachment_2299944” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] St Stephens College has blamed the marking system for the high cutoffs[/caption] “We find ourselves in such a situation every year that due to the style of marking by CBSE and other boards we have to hike our cut offs. We believe that the boards should work on their marking indicators so that the scores are more realistic,” college spokesperson Karen Gabriel said. The college announced its first cut off-list last evening for admissions to the 2015-16 academic session with the highest requirement being for English Honours at 99 per cent. “We have got 6,000 applications for English Honours which has just 30 seats. So, the high cut offs are not by choice, " Gabriel said. Explaining the criteria to decide on cut-offs, she said, “We decide our cut-offs after evaluating three parameters-board marks, student-seat ratio and number of applications received”. “Unfortunately, we are living in a society where students are evaluated by their marks. The state as well as the boards should work on the marking system as well as educational reforms to ensure students do not fall prey to such anomalies in the set up. We as a college cannot do much about it,” she added. St Stephen’s has received a record 32,100 applications for 400 seats, highest in the college’s history. The cut-off for a seat in the Stephen’s English Honours class works out 99 per cent for Commerce, 97.75 per cent for Science and 97.50 per cent for humanities, the highest for any of the subjects on offer at the college. For economics, the cut-off is at 98.50 per cent for commerce it is 97.50 per cent for science and 97 per cent for humanities. For history, BA Pass, Mathematics, Sanskrit and Philosophy, the cut-offs are 98, 96.50, 97.25, 75 and 96.75 per cent respectively. Stephen’s offers Honours courses in Economics, English, History, Philosophy, Sanskrit, Mathematics, Chemistry along with the Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) pass courses. The college earlier used to enroll students on the basis of a personal interview and cut-offs announced after class XII examinations. From this year, an aptitude test of 30-minute duration has been introduced. The candidates meeting the cut-off criteria will now be called for aptitude test and interview starting 22 June. Stephen’s being a minority institution, follows a schedule and procedure for admission which is different from other Delhi University colleges. While the varsity had decided to eliminate stream-wise cut-offs and extra riders by colleges this year, Stephen’s has stuck to the previous pattern. There are separate cut-offs for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (non-Christian), Christian Scheduled Tribes, Church of North India (CNI), CNI Delhi Diocese, Other  Christians, Christian Person with Disability, Person with Disability for some particular subjects, and for Urdu students. PTI