UGC plans JEE, NEET-like common counselling for admissions based on CUET UG

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC), after asking central and state universities to adopt Common University Entrance Test (CUET) UG for admission, is now planning to hold common admission counselling as well. UGC has already formed a committee with officials from different universities to work on it, sources said. As a sample or pilot, five universities have also been roped in.

However, there is no clarity on whether the common CUET counselling for these five universities will be conducted for the upcoming admission season itself.

CUET replaced the admission policies and tests of individual central universities in 2022. The National Testing Agency conducts the centralised exam and declares the CUET results but not a common merit list. Counselling is handled by the individual universities which also set the basic eligibility criteria. This two-tier system has delayed college admissions and also left swathes of seats vacant across central universities over the last two years.

NTA CUET Counselling: JNU, BHU in pilot

Now with the common counselling the participating universities will follow a common merit list, drawn up on the basis of CUET scores, on the lines of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main for engineering and National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET UG) for medicine.

An official told Careers360, “A discussion has been going on since the last three months and a committee has also been formed by the UGC in this regard. Five universities have also been taken up as samples.”

The universities include Mizoram University, University of Hyderabad, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Kashmir University and Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

“We are not sure on how this will be done and how feasible the process is. As each university is diverse and has their own process, integrating it is not easy. Such changes require long-term planning,” added the official.

Careers360 had reached out to the UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar who declined to comment.

According to data shared by Kumar earlier, 46 central universities, 32 state universities, 20 deemed-to-be universities, 98 private universities and six government institutions are part of the CUET UG 2024 and will admit students on the basis of CUET UG scores.

After months of delay in CUET admission in 2023, University of Allahabad had wanted to revert to their own admission entrance test. Later, the university said they were not given permission by the education ministry to conduct it and had to continue with CUET UG.

CUET 2024 changes

The UGC chairman had earlier announced that the test for subjects with the highest registration will be held offline utilising OMR sheets. The change will allow rural area applicants to sit for their CUET exams closer to home.

According to Kumar, exams for high registration subjects would be held on a single day, in one shift across the country. Several schools, colleges, and educational institutions will also serve as CUET examination centres, benefiting students by reducing the distance they need to travel to take examinations.

The online CUET registration is currently open at cuetug.ntaonline.in. The CUET 2024 registration last date has been extended till March 31.

CUET 2024 exam dates are from May 15 to 31.

This year the number of subjects available to a candidate is limited to six, down from 10. Out of these six subjects, there will be three main subjects, two languages, and one general paper.

Two new subjects – fashion studies and tourism – were added by the NTA in CUET UG 2024. The exam will now be held for a total of 63 subjects – 33 languages, 29 domain-specific, and one general test.