Get into your dream DU College!

Worried that your marks in Class XII weren’t good enough? Still want to get into an elite DU College? Here’s your chance! If you were your high school sports star, or if you are an ultimate virtuoso, your school’s Picasso, or perhaps debate and orate like Churchill and Tharoor… here’s your chance! Top colleges of the University of Delhi are accepting applications from students who did exceptionally well in Extra Curricular Activities under the ECA and Sports Quotas. Simply fill up the form, add the transcript and display your skills… and you might just get in!

But is the process that simple? I went around the various colleges of Delhi University’s North Campus to ask and observe the entire process. And I was surprised to find a huge number of students applying. There were all kinds of kids – sports studs and athletes, dancers and singers, painters and debaters. It made me wonder, is the selection process fair?

Letting students into a college which follows the Four Year Undergraduate Program (FYUP) which focuses on holistic learning, solely on the basis of marks in one exam? Well, I wrote a blog on it. But is there a way around it? Fortunately, yes.

All’s not doomed. Colleges are now giving you a chance to enter through the ECA and Sports Quotas. If you have a skill and you know you’re really good, you go fill up the form which is available in the campus with some attested copies of transcripts (Mark sheet, Character certificate, Certificates of achievement in the field… it’s different for each college.) Next, you go to the college for showing off those skills, which could be a debate, a painting contest or a Sports Trial. If you’re convincing enough, you’re in!

So how was the experience for filling the ECA forms? Any college I went to, be it Ramjas or Hindu – I could always find some confused students running in different directions. It was good to see college students helping out the new aspirants. Members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) were seen around the campus helping out the confused ones. One such volunteer, Subhansh (pictured) kept answering the endless stream of queries by the applicants. “It’s a great experience”, he said. I was surprised to see the optimism despite the torturously terrible weather.

True, some colleges did have absolutely no guidance signs or help, but mostly, it was a lot of goof ups on the part of the students that caused confusion. In Ramjas, for instance, I entered around 1 – when the counters close – and yet, there were people rushing in trying to make it on time. Come on people. At least be on time! When I asked Subhash what the most common question applicants asked was, he grinned and replied it was “Where are the ECA forms available?” I swear, there were huge boards with big arrows answering that question. But the nervousness and anxiety probably got the better of most of the aspirants.

So if you’re going in to fill the form here’s what you must keep in mind:

• Call up and find out, beforehand, what all is required. It’ll save you additional trips.
• Keep self attested photocopies (more than what’s required) of ALL your certificates and mark sheets and what not. Better to have something and not need it than need something and not have it.
• Keep tons of passport size photographs. Come on people, its admissions time. You MUST NOT RUN OUT OF PHOTOS!
• Keep a bottle of water, you’ll need it when you’re prancing around the campus.
• Keep a lookout for notices and signs. A friend of mine almost filled out a form which wouldn’t even be accepted. Try not to be stupid and don’t be nervous. It’s just filling a form.
• Be on time.
• Keep a pen. You’re here to fill a form. You cannot not have a pen!