MUMBAI, May 27 -- Around 850 colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai announced their first general merit list for degree admissions on Tuesday, revealing rising demand for professional courses. This was revealed by lower cutoff percentages in traditional courses compared to last year. In contrast, colleges show high cutoffs, particularly in professional courses, vis-a-vis traditional courses. At St Xavier's College, Dhobi Talao, for instance, the cutoff for traditional Bachelor of Arts (BA) courses fell to is 87%, from 90% last year. However, the BA in Psychology and English courses commanded cutoffs of 90.67%, and the BA Economics and Statistics cutoff is 88.17%. As part of the online admission process, which began on May 6, an impressive number of students have participated. A total of 270,000 students have completed the online pre-admission registration stage. Collectively, these students have submitted 912,130 applications for various academic courses, which is higher than last year's number. Last year, 253,370 students registered for pre-admission, submitting 811,643 applications across various undergraduate courses. The admission process includes three-year degree programmes, four-year honours and honours with research programmes. Meanwhile, at RA Podar College, Matunga, the cutoff for traditional BCom courses shows a marginal increase, to 94.4% from 94.33% last year. For self-financed and professional courses such as BCom in banking and finance (BAF), BCom in banking and insurance (BBI), there was an increase in cutoffs compared to last year. Navin M Punjabi, principal, KPB Hinduja College of Commerce, said, "Traditional programmes such as BCom continue to witness high cutoffs."At the same time, he said, interest in courses with a creative component, such as mass media, is gaining ground....