26th June THE D-Day

26th of June remains the dreaded day, beating in anxiety levels the day the Board result is out, hands down. Especially since this year most news papers didn't feature the exhaustive first cut-off list, it was back to campus-hopping for checking individual college's cut-offs. A lot of students trotted down and stood waiting for hours on end, under the impression that the first cut-off will feature a list of their names, if they have cracked the course in that particular college. Another extension of the illusion was that students applying through individual forms to colleges will definitely see a name-based cut-off list which isn't so either. The colleges do not have the sanction to differentiate between people who have applied through individual forms against those who applied through the common pre-admission forms.

'Crazy', 'Unreasonable', 'Murderous' were some of the extreme adjectives used to define the first cut-off list this year by those, very obviously, discontented with the demanded percentage. Lady Shri Ram's cut-off list was received with shock universally. English, the subject as well as the course made for many a miserable day. Amongst the few happy faces were those of students who had managed to crack the Journalism entrance, which requires a very reasonable minimum eligibility as criteria to sit for the exam; despite the lesser intake of students, as compared to last year. Those who hadn't made it through the entrance failed to comprehend why. "The entrances were so simple and went well too but I still haven't made it to any of the colleges offering the course" says a disappointed Nikita Dhingra.

Students were anyway suggested by volunteers at help-desks to visit the colleges they seek admission in, to check up on the riders such as the minimum marks required in the subject concurrent to the course, English, math. Colleges also differ on the courses considered as vocational subjects for which 4% is deducted from the Best Four aggregate. Ridhima Bhatnagar of Tagore International felt cheated by Kamala Nehru's decision to chart Entrepreneurship as a vocational course which is compulsory for all students who opt for Humanities as a stream at Tagore. For a lot of the students who had given their 12th boards in these subjects, the negative weightage was still bearable as compared to including their fifth subject. Worst-hit were those who had more than one of these Vocational Subjects.

B.A. Programme and Geography besides Socio received an overwhelming response from students while B.Com (Pass) remained a reconciliation for a lot of those who had initially aspired for B.Com. (H). As far as the response from the OBC category was concerned, as a volunteer at the Gargi help-desk informs, "Not many have woken up to the fact that for verification of their belonging to the category, OBC's need to carry at the time of admission, a certificate of proof. We've received a lot of forms without attested photocopies, which would obviously mean that they can't receive the advantage sanctioned to them for belonging to Other Backward Classes."