Delhi University (DU) has released the entrance exam pattern and syllabus for students who have completed four years undergraduate course under the direct admission process to Ph.D. This arrangement is for students who have done dissertation, academic project or entrepreneurship related work in fourth year of undergraduate, but have not cleared national level exams like UGC-CSIR NET, GATE. The university has also set rules regarding eligibility, minimum CGPA, score distribution and interview for the examination. The exam date will be announced later.

Four year UG students will get the opportunity

Only those students who have completed eight semesters under University Grants Commission Curriculum and Credit Framework (UGCF-2022) can participate in this admission process of DU. A minimum CGPA of 7.5 is required for General Category candidates. Whereas, a minimum CGPA of 7 has been fixed for Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Disabled category candidates. Apart from this, students are required to do a dissertation, academic project or entrepreneurship related work in the fourth year of graduation. Students doing only translation work will not be eligible on this basis.

The entrance exam will be of two hours duration

The PhD entrance exam will be of 100 marks and the duration will be two hours. The exam will have two parts. The first part will be based on research methodology, while the second part will ask questions from the relevant subject. 50-50 marks are fixed for both parts. If a wrong answer is given in the examination, 25 percent will be deducted from the prescribed marks of the concerned question. Therefore, candidates have to prepare the answers to the questions carefully.

How many marks are required for interview?

General category students must secure at least 50 percent marks in the entrance exam to qualify for the interview. This limit has been kept at 45 percent for reserved classes. In the final selection, 70 percent weightage will be given to the entrance exam marks and 30 percent weightage will be given to the interview. Before the interview, candidates will also have to submit their research or project report.

Syllabus will be different depending on the subject

DU has prescribed courses in research methodology for various subjects. For Commerce, Humanities, Social Sciences, Psychology and Home Science candidates, the syllabus will be subject wise. At the same time, separate courses have been prescribed for Science, Maths, Electronics, Information Technology (IT) and Computer Science candidates.

Candidates should prepare by looking at the syllabus according to their subject category. University will issue other notifications regarding exam date and application process later. Candidates should regularly check the official website of DU for updates.