by COREY FLINTOFF
This can be a harrowing time for high school seniors and their parents in the U.S. as they wait to hear from college admissions offices. But the pressure can be equally intense, if not more so in India, where the massive number of applicants and one make-or-break exam keeps students on edge.
Admission to Delhi University, one of India’s most prestigious schools, is considered as tough, if not tougher than the process at many leading schools in the U.S.
“It’s a very difficult game, given the numbers,” says Dinesh Singh, the vice chancellor of Delhi University.
India has 1.2 billion people, he notes, and like most things in Indian life, getting one of the limited places at the best colleges is incredibly competitive.
Delhi University is an amalgam of 80 different colleges in the Indian capital, India’s equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge in Britain or the Ivy League schools in the U.S.
All told, Singh has about 50,000 slots to fill with incoming students each year. It may sound like a lot, but it’s just a small fraction of those applying.
For example, Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce has just 400 slots and gets some 28,000 applicants each year. That means less than 2 percent of the applicants get in, an acceptance rate far lower than Harvard’s.
NPR for more
(Thanks to reader)