Mumbai, May 30 -- The first list of candidates who have secured admission to class 11 or first year junior college (FYJC) was declared on Friday. Out of the 887,264 students across Maharashtra who sought admission during the first centralised admission process (CAP) round, 574,943 students managed to secure seats in colleges, with the Mumbai division accounting for 133,323 students, the highest among eight divisions in the state. In all, 2.2 million seats were available across the state this year for class 11 admissions, of which 477,210 were in Mumbai. It was widely anticipated that cutoff marks for admission in city colleges would be lower this year than last year, as there was a significant drop in students with high scores. In 2024-25, 17,895 or 5.31% examinees from Mumbai scored more than 90%, which declined to 13,591 or 4.2% examinees this year; there was a similar decline in students who scored 85-90% and 80-85%. However, the drop in cutoff scores was negligible at most colleges compared to the previous year. At St Xavier's College - renowned for its Humanities programmes - the cutoff last year for the Arts stream in the first merit list stood at 93.4%, which dropped by just 0.8% this year. At Ruia College, the cutoff for the Arts stream dropped by just 0.6%, from 92.4% to 91.8%. At Vaze-Kelkar College, the cutoff for the Arts stream actually rose by 0.2%, from 89.2% last year to 89.4% this year. Professor Preeta Nilesh, Principal, Vaze College (autonomous) said that among Arts students, Sanskrit and Psychology were the most sought after subjects, while Science students were keen on IT and Biology. "Since the past two years, Arts students are also preferring Secretarial Practice over Mathematics. Earlier, we used to have a merit list for Mathematics," Nilesh said. The decline in cutoffs was marginal at prominent commerce colleges as well such as HR, Jai Hind, Podar, MCC, and Dahanukar. Last year, the cutoff for the first merit list at HR College was 93.4%, which dropped to 93% this year. The most significant decline, ranging 1-2%, was seen in merit lists for the Science stream. More than 20 days after the State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education declared results for the class 10 board exams, students are still waiting for their original mark sheets. Schools have also not received mark sheets and school leaving certificates. The Directorate of Education has directed colleges not to make mark sheets mandatory at this stage and asked students to submit documents later. However, students have been forced to submit undertakings to colleges and have questioned why they should suffer because of delays in the government system....