Universities Given Flexibility to Fill Vacant Seats After CUET, Delhi University Welcomes Decision

CUET stands for Common University Entrance Test. Loads of students take it to be enrolled in Indian Universities. However, even then, some universities sometimes have vacant seats. The UGC has taken cognizance of the issue. Now, to tackle this, it has come up with a new rule— in case of vacant seats even after CUET, the universities to fill them up can take a call on their own. They can either conduct their entrance tests or look at students’ school marks to decide who gets admitted.

Two New Ways to Fill Empty Seats

#1. Universities Can Hold Their Own Entrance Tests

Now, if a university still has empty seats, it can design its own entrance test to help it pick students to fill those seats.

#2. Universities Can Look at Students’ School Marks

Universities may also fill empty seats based on the marks that students score at school. They will pick students depending on how well they do in those examinations.

Why Did UGC Make This New Rule?

It was found by the UGC that despite repeated attempts to fill up seats through CUET, some universities still had unfilled seats. They did not want to let those seats go to waste for one whole year. Empty seats mean:

1. Wastage of resources

2. Some students miss out on good education

Who Can Apply for These Left-Over Seats?

Students who have taken the CUET can apply for these seats. It doesn’t matter if they had applied to that university before or not. Also, a bit of leniency is proposed in making the rules of the universities so that more students can apply.

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How Can Universities Pick Students?

Most importantly, universities should pick their students fairly. That is to say that they should:

1. offer seats to the students according to merit

2. mention how they are going to choose students

3. follow rules about saving seats for different groups of people (reservation rules)

What is the Key Mode of University Admission?

Even with these new rules in place, entry into universities will still be mainly based on CUET scores. These new rules are to help fill seats that are left empty after using CUET.