English, English everywhere... Not a mark to spare!

2008 will go down in the history of DU admissions as the blunder year for experimenting with the be all and end all of subjects - English. The criteria for calculating Best Four, on the basis of which one compares one's aggregate to the various cut-offs, is one language (which is taken to be English in most cases) plus three electives and as we all know, the scores in English are, universally, the most erratic, whichever be the board. Can't do with; can't do without! English then becomes a horror for most public school and private school students, especially those which offer Functional or even Core English to their students. Year after year, the threats for negative weightage for these two have come and gone, and finally this year DU authorities have decided to reward Elective English with positive weightage instead. Since the school unanimously decides which one to choose from amongst these three options for all students, the children feel unfairly penalised for something they are bequeathed with.

Anshu Khanna, Anshika Khanna's mother is extremely upset. "My daughter wishes to apply to Sociology Honours and has scored 96 in Socio which awards her a 3% relaxation at most places. Her best four is more than 10% above the cut-off at Kamala Nehru but the rider on English debars her from taking admission since she has scored a 55 while she needs a minimum of 70 in the wretched subject." Junior Khanna asks, "What does my score in a literature-based paper have to do with my doing sociology?" The Khannas are genuinely depressed since Anshika's best five is more than her best four and if she literally calculates her 'BEST' Four i.e. minus English, her aggregate shoots up by another 7%. She has cleared the first list for History in Jesus and Mary College and is wait-listed for Political Science. Anshika has no option but to surf these alternatives since her preferred course is not available to her in any of the reputed colleges.

Another bone of contention has been the disposal of English entrance exams. The entrance exam for B.A. Honours in English had previously served the dual purpose of being a safety valve for those who are yet undecided on which career path to take and have nowhere to go besides acting as a filter for recruiting the truly deserving. Arushi Sharma, President of Students Union at Gargi contemplates, "Another one of the University's annual experiments I guess. The ever impending decision to have a common entrance exam for all colleges offering English (Hons.) has never gone down well with individual colleges since that would mean a hierarchical segregation on the basis of ranks. Who decides who gets the top scorers?"

But with the limited time between the date DU admissions start and the date the cut-offs come out, there is bound to be a clash in dates of the entrances, especially since there are entrances for other subjects too. Generally students who appear for journalism entrances also sit for English and vice-versa. "But this isn't the solution", says Kanupriya who has just passed out of DPS RK Puram. "At least earlier we had a choice between two or three entrances which, no doubt, on the basis of merit, but gave us a chance as contenders. Now there is no hope whatsoever!" Stephen's cut-off for Commerce students was set at 98%. "Why would someone who gets a 98%, take up English in the first place, I completely fail to understand!" vents Aditi, Kanupriya's class-mate.