MUMBAI: Degree colleges will open their gates to students on Wednesday after the long uncertainty finally ended. For students it will be back to campus life, festivals and canteen chatter.
According to the Mumbai University admission schedule, first-year students in senior colleges will start their lectures on Wednesday. While some autonomous colleges already started on Friday with an orientation and offered offline classes from Monday, most others will run full capacity from Wednesday. The admission schedule was extended to accommodate students from ISC and CBSE boards as their results were delayed.
College heads were taken aback by their low turnout though. "The admission season this year was different. So, while it is difficult to compare this session with those of the previous years, we had a lukewarm response from students of the national boards," said Ruia College principal Anushree Lokur. While the college admitted most candidates who applied in the science stream, there were few vacant seats in humanities and students with high scores were accommodated. At HR College, 40% seats were set aside for CBSE and ISC boards, but merely 10%-15% took admissions.
"Their response was poor. We were quite surprised. We thought CBSE students would be keen on joining some of the unaided programmes like BMM, but they have either opted for professional programmes like engineering or medicine. Also, we feel some colleges have admitted them provisionally," said HR College principal Pooja Ramchandani. Principals, though, said campuses are full after years.
