Eight deemed-to-be universities, including the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and Jamia Hamdard, have expressed a desire to use Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores to admit students to undergraduate courses, UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said on Monday, March 28.

Kumar held a meeting on Monday with vice-chancellors and directors of these eight deemed-to-be universities which receive maintenance grants from the UGC.

Besides TISS, Mumbai, and Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, the other six varsities include Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram, Dindigul Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra, Gurukul Kangri, Haridwar, Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, Avinashilingam Institute of Home Sciences, Coimbatore, and Ramakrishna Vivekananda Educational Research Institute, Kolkata.

"They have also given some useful suggestions. This is an opportunity for all universities to adopt CUET and relieve the students from the stress of getting either very high Class XII Board scores or writing multiple entrance tests," he said. CUET scores will be mandatory for admission to 45 central universities for undergraduate programmes, Kumar had said last week.

On Sunday, March 27, he also wrote to vice-chancellors of other universities to use CUET scores for admission to undergraduate programmes. "I explained to them the salient features of the Central University Entrance Test and how it would be beneficial to the students. I made it clear to them that the existing reservation policies of the institutes will not be affected and they can continue to admit students in undergraduate programmes as per existing reservation policies except that the admission has to be based on CUET score and not based on Class XII Board marks," Kumar said.