It has been an established trend for years and it is catching enough attention this year as well. Students are migrating from Science to Commerce stream at the Plus-Three stage.
As admission to graduate courses in city colleges enters a crucial phase, the trend is becoming more visible.
Commerce lecturers attribute a host of factors for this, the prime factor being the lure of the corporate world. Everyone wants to enjoy a slice of the booming economy.
The city is not the only place witnessing this drift. For, Science students in towns across the State are also showing a lot of interest to graduate in Commerce. Take Pallavi Senapati for example. Having secured an honours seat in Commerce at RD Women’s College, Bhubaneswar, she wants to qualify for CAT while passing Plus-Three simultaneously.
“My teacher, however, wanted me to stick to Science. But I made up my mind after failing to make it to JEE. After all, this is what everyone does,” she reasoned. What she is unaware of is that more students are riding on this craze this year. No wonder then, the favour for Commerce has pushed up the cut-off marks substantially this year. Sources in the Higher Education department said cut-off for Commerce stream increased in all the leading colleges of the State by 0.34 pc to 3 pc this year. A large number of seats were filled up in the first selection. At BJB Autonomous College, of the 256 Commerce seats, 170 were filled up in the first admission itself and at RD Women’s College, 143 have taken admission till date for 192 seats in the subject.
Principal of RD Women’s College Chitrangada Samanta Singh said the demand for Commerce in the college had always been there and it’s increasing every year. She said in the second selection list, the cut-off for Commerce stream in the college was 60.80 pc while it was 64.7 pc in the first selection.
Similarly, admission in-charge at BJB College Jahanara Begum said 1,691 high-scoring students had applied for admission to the college in Commerce this year. Meanwhile, the Department of Higher Education will publish a second selection list on Tuesday and admission to the remaining seats will take place from July 12 to July 14.