Cut-off marks for B Com likely to be quite high

A whopping 8, 301 students scored a centum in Commerce this year, while another 5,597 students had the perfect score in Accountancy and 2,551 students secured a full 200 in Business Mathematics. 

“There is a sharp difference in the number of centums this year, when compared to recent years. Last year only 3,084 students achieved the perfect score and in 2015 it was just 819. When compared to 2016, this year’s difference is more than double. Same is the case with Economics. In 2015, only 179 students scored 200, which increased to 442 in 2016. 

However, this year, it has jumped to 1,717. Likewise, when it comes to Accountancy, the difference is an additional 1,256, when compared to last year,” says educationist S Somasundaram, who is a consultant with many colleges in the city. He adds that the question papers were easy this time and the evaluation was also not very strict. 

“This is the reason why many students from the Commerce stream have received 1180 and above out of 1200. This means there will be a rise in cut-offs for courses like B Com by around one per cent. The top colleges usually only look at the Commerce, Accountancy and Economics marks and only few look at the overall,” he says. 

The situation is likely to be similar with Engineering, as there are more centums in Physics and Mathematics this year. Colleges are also seeing a mad rush for the B Com and BBA courses. An Economics professor from a popular college, who doesn’t want to be named, says, “There has always been a rush for B Com, followed by BBA in our college. 

We have been receiving thousands of applications, ever since we opened the admissions online. The competition is so cut-throat that we start getting calls from influential people, asking us to offer a seat and admit their relative. It becomes very stressful for the college administration.”

 The trend also shows that more number of students are thinking beyond Engineering and Medicine. Though there were no ranks this time, most of the students who scored above 1190 belong to the Commerce stream.