Presidency University will admit students to its undergraduate courses this year solely based on board marks as admission tests could not be held following an objection from the state government.

An admissions notification issued on Monday says the merit lists for all subjects, except statistics and economics, would be prepared on the basis of marks obtained in the Class X and Class XII board exams.

For economics and statistics honours, students will be admitted based on their plus-II board marks.

The details of the selection process for the 665 undergraduate seats have been uploaded on the university’s website.

Aspirants have to submit applications between August 2 and 20, in keeping with a deadline set by the state government.

The notification says that for physics honours, the marks in math and the average marks in physical science and life science in Madhyamik, or scores in the science group in equivalent exams, will be added to the plus-II aggregate and the plus-II marks in math before drawing up the merit list.

For chemistry honours, the average marks of physical science and life science in Madhyamik, or the marks in the science group in equivalent exams, will be added to the plus-II scores in chemistry, math and English.

Marks-based admission was necessitated at the College Street institution after education secretary Manish Jain had during a meeting with vice-chancellors on July 7 said no government-aided colleges and universities could conduct admission tests for undergraduate courses this year, apparently because of Covid-19 and the digital divide among students.

Presidency vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia told The Telegraph on Monday: “For marks-based admissions, the performance of an aspirant in secondary board exams is being factored in. This will help us segregate candidates in case scores are tied and identify students with the potential to pursue a subject.”

None of the boards could conduct the school-leaving exams this year because of a rise in Covid cases.

A teacher of a humanities department said screening prospective students through some sort of a test would provide a solution, as that would give a level playing field to the applicants.

According to him, this year has witnessed a sharp decline among top-grade scorers in the state higher secondary exams and a rise in the number of such scorers in the CBSE Class XII and ISC exams.

“But after the higher education department last week struck down Jadavpur University’s proposal to give some weightage to online group discussions or viva while screening undergraduate students in science, marks-based admission remains the sole option,” he said.