Pune boys want 'a college with good girls'

Pune: "I want a college with good girls, please oblige" or "This college has only four classrooms, I want a bigger campus" are just two examples from the hundreds of unusual applications received by the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) committee in the three days since First Year Junior College (FYJC) admissions began.

Fed up with the frivolous complaints made by students that are time-consuming and cause a delay in the resolution of genuine complaints, the CAP committee organised a press conference on Thursday to appeal to students and parents to stop making such requests.

Armed with a stack of complaints received from students as proof, deputy director of education Sunil Magar said that barely a fifth of the 700-odd complaints received were genuine.

"We want to appeal to all to stop making such requests as these shall not be entertained by us. If we made a mistake in allotment -- like a student has the required percentage and yet has not been given a college of his preference or if a student should get the benefit of reservation and doesn't receive it -- then we shall definitely consider (the complaint) and solve it," said Magar.

"However, if a student demands a college of his choice because his group of friends has got in there or because he doesn't have a bus to go to the allotted college or because he didn't like the campus, such complaints shall not be entertained," he said.

Officials also complain that parents and students are claiming that they made mistakes in selecting preference centres and should not lose out on colleges for that reason.

"Pre-admission, we counselled 18,000 students, where we told them about the admission process, form filling, et cetera. Even during admission, students came to us to get forms checked for errors before submission. Now after allotment if people make excuses, it can't be helped," said Rekha Palshikar, vice-principal of Fergusson College and a CAP committee member.

The committee said that though the absolute number of students who took admission according to the merit list was not available, it was estimated to be more than 90 per cent.

"Seats in all the top colleges are taken; barely a few seats might be left. Even in other colleges, most admissions are done and the first waiting list would not make much of a difference in cut-offs. We advise students who haven't already taken admission to do so immediately," said Magar.