Mumbai: Colleges might see vacancies due to delay in CET results

Students at Sathaye College on the first day of in-person classes

The long wait for Common Entrance Test (CET) results will end for students by month-end, but what remains a concern for colleges across the city is that most of the seats of the self-financed and professional courses like B.Sc. IT, Biotechnology among all, are likely to fall vacant. Reason: many students take admission to these courses as a back-up plan as they wait for their engineering, medical rankings, and post the results they might just leave the seats and go for the traditional courses. The current situation will also not allow those ranking lower than them to move up and get a seat in a college of their choice.

Usually if students withdraw their admissions, those in the waiting list who had taken admission in colleges less preferred by them are brought ahead and eventually the seats get filled. But this year, as the deadline for issuing a refund of fees in case of withdrawal of admissions - September 30 - is over, this won't be the case. Not only the Science stream, even colleges offering Arts courses will see vacancies as those vying admission for Bachelor of Law take admission to traditional Arts courses as a back-up plan.

Principal of a well-known Arts college said, "More than the colleges the students will suffer, as they will lose the chance of taking admissions in institutes of their choice. Colleges will only see vacancies but no financial loss as fees have already been paid for the seats. Generally, this admission cycle allows many low rankers to move ahead in the merit list. But this year the students who withdraw admissions might continue on the existing seats to avoid financial loss."