Mumbai: As the first round of the First Year Junior College (FYJC) admissions came to an end on Monday, only around 46% of students in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) confirmed their allotted seats.
Of 2.62 lakh students who have been registered for the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) in the region, only around half, 1.36 lakh, had got seats in one of their preferred colleges. However, only 63,062 of the students were admitted at the end of the first round, while the remaining students opted for better opportunities in the subsequent rounds.
Among those who were enrolled in the first round, more than two-thirds, 44,6170 to be precise, are the ones who got a seat in their very first choice of junior college. But, there are 12,353 students that were allotted their first preference but didn't report for admission, even though it was mandatory for them to pick their seats. They will now have to sit out the second CAP round and try their luck in the third.
So far, the junior colleges in MMR have admitted 75,912 students, including 12,850 students who were enrolled through in-house, management and minority quotas in round zero, leaving over 3 lakh or 80% seats still up for grabs.
However, most of the seats in leading colleges in the city have already been taken. "Around 95% of our seats are filled, which is the case every year," said Parag Ajgaonkar, NM College, Vile Parle.
Ajgaonkar said that most students like to wait for the remaining rounds of admission in the hopes of getting a more preferred college. "Many students are indecisive. They might have given a particular order of junior college preference in the first round, but they end up changing it later," he added.
While there will be two more regular rounds, and a couple of special rounds of admissions, this year the Directorate of Education has done away with the multiple First Come First Serve (FCFS) rounds for students left without seats. The admission for the vacant reserved seats as well as the second regular CAP round will both start from Tuesday (June 27), where students can change the order of preference if they want.
