Demographically, India is a young country. The majority of the population is in the range of 15-25 years of age, which means that every year, the number of people applying for colleges is also increasing. Despite the soaring school dropout rate, the number of students vying for the best colleges and courses has risen exponentially in the last few years.

Delhi University has made the news this year for its high-cut offs. SRCC, the renowned college affiliated to DU required a 100% score for admission into its B.com (Honors). Everyone from the students to educationists was taken aback. But the college justified the high cut-off rate. It explained that since the number of students in 90% – 99% categories has increased, it is very difficult to pick students. More than 2000 students got 95% marks this year.

Experts who have been analyzing the data for past many years have explained this high cut off phenomenon is an inevitable result of the growing gap between the number of colleges and students.

They give two major reasons:

1. The lack of high-quality, established institutes.

2. The lenient grading system at the 10+2 level has also boosted the number of students scoring sky-high percentages.

All the above factors have burdened the few good institutes forcing them to increase to cutoff margins to intake only highly competent students.