True to tradition the Delhi University once again received the maximum number of applications from students of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the country’s largest secondary education board.

According to the data released by the University based on the centralised OMR forms, out of the staggering 1, 28, 106 applicants this year, three-fourth are from the CBSE (95, 530). ISC comes as a distant second with just 8,862 applicants, followed closely by UP Board with 8,324 applications. All these candidates are vying for 49,640 seats of DU.

Experts allot various reasons to CBSE students leading the pack of applicants. Apart from the fact that CBSE has lakhs of students under its fold, it is also believed that since the CBSE marks have been going up over the last few years, applicants feel a lot more hopeful while applying. “This is not a surprise for us. Every year we observe this trend and this has mostly to do with CBSE having the largest number of students passing out of Class XII. Also, percentages of students have also seen a steep rise,” said G S Tuteja, Deputy Dean Students Welfare.

Another trend has come to light over past few years. More male students apply to DU than female candidates, though more female students make it to the colleges. This year, against 72,000 boys only around 56,000 girls have applied to DU. Also, apart from ISC, all school boards have fewer female applicants.

“We have seen that girls are scoring better than the boys, so that gives them an edge in the cut-off lists. Apart from that, 21 colleges of the university are women’s colleges and females also have access to co-ed colleges,” Tuteja said.

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