Ahmedabad: The special GCAS admission round for St Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad, will open on Wednesday amid questions over the large number of vacant seats across Gujarat’s universities despite repeated admission rounds.Gujarat University alone has around 31,500 vacant seats, according to varsity sources. The govt, however, has not yet published consolidated figures showing vacant seats across universities covered by the Gujarat Common Admission Services (GCAS) process.The special round for St Xavier’s will begin at 11am on Wednesday and will remain open until 11.59pm on Sep 20 (Sunday). It has been announced for admissions exclusively to the college.The schedule provides for three admission rounds for St Xavier’s. The college will prepare and verify merit lists before issuing admission offers on Sept 21-22, 25 and 29. Students will subsequently get windows to confirm their offers, submit documents and pay fees.The development has also renewed questions over the effectiveness of the admission process, with student organisations pointing to the number of rounds already conducted.“So far, about 20 rounds of GCAS have been conducted. Initially, around nine rounds were held. Later, universities held admission rounds and individual institutions also conducted rounds. Yet thousands of seats remained vacant,” said Narayan Bharwad, spokesperson of NSUI.“This is a failure of the system. The govt has so far not even declared how many seats are currently vacant across all universities where admissions were conducted through GCAS,” he said.The GCAS schedule shows that the special St Xavier’s rounds will be followed by a mop-up round from Oct 3, when other universities and colleges will also be allowed to offer admissions against vacant seats.“Delayed admissions will impact the time students get to prepare for their mid-term or semester-end exams. This is because the academic year typically begins by July or Aug. Curriculum has already begun across most institutions. Even though students will be admitted by Oct, they will have a lot to catch up academically and will be left with little time for semester-end exams,” said a senior faculty member.Unlike earlier rounds, colleges will maintain their own merit lists and cut-offs during the mop-up process. GCAS will not display cut-offs, while vacant seats on the portal will be updated every six hours.
