St Stephen's blames marking in boards for high cut-offs

NEW DELHI: St Stephen's college which has announced a staggering cut-off at 99 per cent for admissions this year today sought to put the onus on boards, saying they should work on their marking indicators to make scores more "realistic".

"We find ourselves in such a situation every year that due to the style of marking by CBSE and other boards we have to hike our cut offs. We believe that the boards should work on their marking indicators so that the scores are more realistic," college spokesperson Karen Gabriel said.

The college announced its first cut off-list last evening for admissions to the 2015-16 academic session with the highest requirement being for English Honours at 99 per cent.

"We have got 6,000 applications for English Honours which has just 30 seats. So, the high cut offs are not by choice, " Gabriel said.

Explaining the criteria to decide on cut-offs, she said, "We decide our cut-offs after evaluating three parameters- board marks, student-seat ratio and number of applications received".

"Unfortunately, we are living in a society where students are evaluated by their marks. The state as well as the boards should work on the marking system as well as educational reforms to ensure students do not fall prey to such anomalies in the set up. We as a college cannot do much about it," she added.

St Stephen's has received a record 32,100 applications for 400 seats, highest in the college's history.