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Author :
Nisha Sharma |
This year, DU saw a drop in the use of tie-breakers during UG admissions through the Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS). University officials said this happened because the National Testing Agency (NTA) gave out normalised CUET scores with up to seven decimal places, instead of using raw scores like last year.
A DU official said that because they got raw scores last year that's why they need to depend on tie-breaking rules. But this year, due to the accuracy of the normalised scores, we could allot seats based mostly on CUET marks.
Raw scores are the original marks students get in each CUET subject before normalisation or percentile calculations.
If CUET scores were tied last year, DU checked Class 12 marks, age or names to decide who got the seat.
The NTA provided CUET scores this year with up to seven decimal digits such as 741.7355297. Because of this level of accuracy, it became much less likely for two students to have the same score. As a result, Delhi University (DU) mostly didn’t need to use tie-breaking rules and could allot seats based directly on CUET scores.
DU has more than 71,000 undergraduate seats but it has already allocated around 93,166 seats so far. This suggests that students will shift colleges and courses in the next rounds, just like in previous years.
To avoid last year’s issues, DU updated its tie-breaking rules for 2025-26 admissions. The university has now replaced the old method where alphabetical order was used as a last resort with a system that uses Class 10 marks instead.
Haneet Gandhi, DU’s Dean of Admissions, said, “Last year we used raw scores and sometimes had to break ties by alphabetical order.”
“This year, we aimed for a fairer and more merit-based method. We now use the average marks from all Class 10 subjects to resolve tie situations. This approach helps us allocate seats to the most deserving students,” she added.
In earlier years like 2023, DU had to use tie-breakers more often than in 2022. That was because CUET scores were higher overall which led to more competition. In some cases, DU had to go all the way down to alphabetical order to choose between students with the same score.
Even after 4 years of CUET admissions many students still chose BCom Hons at Delhi University. Shri Ram College of Commerce is the most popular college for this course.
At Miranda House, Principal Bijayalaxmi Nanda said, “We’ve almost filled all our seats and will finish the rest of the admissions soon.” The college had received 1,482 applications, out of which 1,360 were approved and 12 were rejected. The most popular subjects were Economics, Political Science, English and Hindi.
Kirori Mal College Principal Dinesh Khattar stated, "We have nearly filled our over 1,500 seats and expect to complete admissions by tonight.
"This year, more than 3.05 Lakh students applied to Delhi University for undergraduate courses. This is the highest number since DU has started using CUET for admissions.
