Chandigarh: It's not just Delhi University (DU) that has high cut-offs -- colleges in Chandigarh too are out of bounds for average students with some courses requiring as high as 98.7 percent marks for admission.

Merit lists for the cut-off percentage for different streams have been displayed at all city colleges and most of them began their admission process on Tuesday.

Commerce and computer applications are the most sought after courses and their cut-offs are at a new high.

SD College in sector-32, one of the leading commerce colleges, has received over 4,000 applications for admission to the 280 available seats in the Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) stream.

The cut-off for admission to the B.Com course is 97.8 percent without mathematics and 93.8 percent with mathematics in the general pool (outstation students) and 93.2 percent without mathematics and 89.2 percent with mathematics for students from the union territory (UT).

For courses in Bachelors in Business administration (BBA) and Bachelors in Computer Applications (BCA), the cut off percentages are 86 percent and 80 percent, respectively.

Similarly, in DAV College, the cut-off mark for B. Com is 90.8 percent in the general pool and 82.6 percent in the UT pool. The college has received around 2,500 applications for the 150 available seats.

The DAV College was recently ranked number 1 for its commerce and science courses in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir by a survey conducted by India Today magazine of 1,800 colleges across India.

"Over the last few years, Chandigarh has emerged has a education hub. With the advent of the IT Park and many good multinational companies in and around Chandigarh, the city colleges are the foremost choice of students from all over the country," said K.C. Jain, dean (admissions) of DAV College.

"I think for average students of Chandigarh, admissions are all by chance and not by choice. My son has scored 78 percent in Commerce in Class 12, but we are very apprehensive of his admission in B.Com. So unwillingly we have also applied for humanities as a back-up option," said Joginder Singh, a worried father.

Another city college, MCM DAV College has received 3,000 applications for 210 seats in the commerce stream. The cut off percentage for B.Com in the college is 96.6 percent for the general pool and 94.4 percent for the UT pool.

"This year there is a heavy rush for admissions into B.Com and BCA courses. The core problem is that Chandigarh colleges are also catering to students from states like Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh," Puneet Bedi, principal of MCM DAV College, told IANS.

Bedi said his college had this time received more applications from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar than previous years, so cut offs were bound to rise. But in the process, Chandigarh students suffer as they don't get admission into the college of their choice, he said. IANS