CUET-UG: Delhi, NCR Cities Log Highest Number of Candidates Out of 13.5 Lakh Registrations This Year

The highest number of students out of at least 13.5 lakh, who have registered for the Common University Entrance Test, or CUET-UG, this year, are from Delhi. The total number of applicants, however, is lower this year as compared to the nearly 15 lakh students who applied last year. Still, the figure is higher than the debut edition of the test, for which 9.9 lakh candidates had registered.

Delhi is followed by Noida and Greater Noida in the national capital region (NCR) in terms of number of candidates, UGC chairperson Prof M Jagadesh Kumar told News18. This year, the CUET-UG will be conducted between May 15 and 31 for admission to undergraduate courses across central universities in India. Many state universities, too, are accepting CUET-UG scores as one of the eligibility criteria. The exam is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).

This year, it will be the third edition of the CUET-UG that, after record applications last year, turned into the country’s second-largest entrance exam after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), which is conducted for admission to medical courses.

Delhi-NCR, UP, Jharkhand top registrations

According to Kumar, this year, the highest number of registrations are from Delhi, followed by Noida and Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh. Ranchi in Jharkhand, Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) in UP, Patna in Bihar, Hazaribagh (Jharkhand), Lucknow (UP), Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir) and Gurugram (Haryana) are among the top 10 cities in terms of number of candidates applying for the test.

Noida, Greater Noida and Gurugram are all satellite cities adjoining Delhi and are part of the NCR. Broadly, even this year, the highest number of registrations are from Delhi, UP, Jharkhand and Jammu. Last year, the NTA had received an unprecedented number of registrations from Jharkhand as well as J&K, which were 6.7 times higher than those registered in the previous year.

The higher number of applications from these areas made it tough for the testing agency to find as many centres and, eventually, the exam schedule had to be delayed. This year, the entrance exam will be conducted in both pen-and-paper mode as well as computer-based test (CBT) to resolve the issue of a long-drawn schedule.

The UGC had earlier announced that all subjects, which have more than 1 lakh registrations, will be conducted in the pen-and-paper mode (optical mark recognition). Kumar said since this year all the papers will be held in a single session in one day, raw scores instead of normalised scores (which was the practice for the last two editions) will be taken to award CUET scores.

English remains top choice

English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Urdu and Sanskrit are the top choices for subject papers and have the highest registrations this year, Kumar said. “This year, since the exam schedule is shorter, we expect that the results will be announced in the second or third week of June so that universities can begin their academic session in July,” he added.

In the last two years, too, languages including English and Hindi remained the top choices, besides other subjects such as biology, physics, business studies, economics and accounting among others.

The entrance test will be conducted across 380 cities in India and 26 cities abroad – Kuwait, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Colombo, Doha, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos/Abuja, Muscat, Manama, Riyadh, Sharjah, Singapore, Brasilia, Canberra, Cape Town, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Moscow, Oslo, Ottawa, Port Louis, Vienna and Washington DC.

Find Lok Sabha Election 2024 Phase 3 Schedule, Key Candidates And Constituencies At News18 Website.