A large number of students scoring in the 100th percentile in the second edition of the Common University Entrance Test-Undergraduate, may very well lead to high cut-offs in top subject choices this year. A total of 22,836 candidates scored in the 100th percentile in the entrance examination, results for which were announced on Saturday afternoon.
The results were delayed by at least a fortnight due to extending the exam schedule in several states and a large number of challenges faced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) before preparing the final answer key.
According to data, out of 14.99 lakh students who registered for the exam, 11.16 lakh took the test. Last year, around nine lakh students had appeared for the test while 21,159 scored in the 100th percentile.
Out of the total 100th percentile subject scores, highest were in English (5,685) followed by biology/biotechnology/biological studies/biochemistry (4,850), economics (2,836) and business studies (2,357). Last year, too, the highest scorers were from English followed by political science, biology and economics.
“I am glad we could announce the CUET-UG results as planned on July 15. In subjects such as accountancy, biology, business studies, economics, English, history and political science, more than 1,000 students got 100 percentile scores. The NTA will provide normalised scores to the 250 participating universities, which can use them to prepare the merit list for admission to undergraduate courses,” said University Grants Commission (UGC) chairperson Prof M Jagadesh Kumar.
A total of 2,54,800 candidates scored above 95 percentile, which is the second best score for admission to top universities. The results pave the way for students to get admission to 250 universities, including Delhi University.
The NTA conducted the test in nine phases over 34 days from May 21 to July 5. A total of 2,200 subject experts and 800 translators were involved in preparing 2,305 question papers and 14,85,20 questions.
Unlike last year, the NTA had shared the number of toppers and the states that had fared better. But it has not shared these figures this time.
While the percentile represents the relative performance of a student – being in the hundredth percentile means they are virtually better than 100 percent of the other test takers – admission to colleges will be determined by a different metric, which is called a “normalised score”.
“Since the CUET was held over multiple days and sessions, students sat for the same subjects in different shifts with different questions. The normalised score is a process in which any difference in difficulty levels between these shifts is statistically removed to make the performance of all students comparable, irrespective of which specific questions they attempted,” the NTA stated.
Candidates were given an opportunity for the challenge from June 29 to July 1. In this duration, about 25,782 answer key challenges were received of which 3,886 were unique.
This year, the registered candidates opted for 64,35,144 test papers and applied for 48,779 unique combinations of subjects across the 250 participating universities, the agency said. Last year, most top colleges with high subject scores at Delhi University were full by the second merit list. The new session at the university is set to commence from August 16.
The first list could be announced by DU anytime now and the cut-offs might be slightly higher than last year due to a large number of students taking the exam, said Hindu College principal Prof Anju Srivastava.
“It might be a little stiffer for students to get into their choice of course at a college they desire. English has always been the topmost choice with the highest scorers, so is economics. More students scoring in the 100th percentile in biology is a new trend, which gives a hint of interest levels rising in subjects across disciplines and is a welcome change,” Srivastava said.
Shri Ram College of Commerce principal Prof Simrit Kaur, too, said they had to wait for the university to release the first merit list in order to know where the cut-off settles.
“Seats are limited. Earlier, too, when admissions took place based on Class XII results, even if the first cut-off declared for a subject was 100, we wouldn’t settle there and there would be second and third lists. So, we may end up getting more students this year as well,” she added.
With the CUET-UG being rolled out from last year, admissions to central universities are based on results to this test, which has turned out to be the second largest entrance examination in the country.
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