New Delhi:
Hordes of students want to get into Delhi University but Vanshaj Bhasin is giving it a miss. He is instead busy checking the websites of foreign universities.
Vanshaj scored 88 per cent in the Class XII CBSE exams but has not got a seat in his preferred course, Economics Honours, in any of the top colleges of Delhi University.
Vanshaj says he is even willing to lose a year if he gets a good alternative outside Delhi.
"There are other people in college thinking we are not going to get good enough marks. So I thought I must also apply. I will try SAT, if I score 2200 out of 2400 I get into Stanford. So they have a winter batch, in that case I will lose 6 months," Vanshaj said.
There has been mass outrage with Delhi University cut-offs hitting the roof. But experts say this was expected. The number of CBSE students scoring 90 per cent has almost doubled this year, with 70 of Vanshaj's classmates alone falling in that bracket.
Principals and educationists say the imbalance between supply of students and availability for seats has led to a brain drain for the past few years. None of them see cut offs coming down in the immediate future. So does the answer lie in increasing the number of seats in Delhi University?
Currently, Delhi University has 54,000 seats. St Stephen's principal Valson Thampu believes the number of seats needs to be raised. Thampu had written to university authorities last year, asking them to raise the seats in three courses. But that proposal never took off.
"I have the report of the inspection committee. One said it is difficult to get good economics teachers, another point was they wanted the semester system to settle down in DU. But these are all extraneous issues," said Mr Thampu.
Meanwhile, Vanshaj has taken admission in a BA course in DU. But what about many others like him who have scored even less marks.