The results, announced Friday, show that the score, after normalisation, required to find a place in the top 95-100 percentile bracket is as high as 92.5% in the case of English while the corresponding percentage for Mathematics is 51.5.

In other words, to be in the top percentile bracket, a candidate needs to have scored at least 185.9 out of 200 (maximum score in each subject is 200) in English and 103.7 in maths. However, a clear picture of the race for admissions will emerge only after institutions like the Delhi University start admitting students.

The CUET, administered by the National Testing Agency,  was introduced this year as a single gateway exam to bypass soaring cut-offs and Class XII Board marks given the wide diversity in how different Boards evaluate students,

CUET results show that for other Humanities subjects, the score equivalent to 95 percentile is as follows: History 165.4 or 82.7 per cent; Psychology 190.9 or 95.45 per cent; Economics 175.8 or 87.9; Hindi 171.09 or 85.5 per cent while Sociology is an exception with a requirement of 157.4 or 78.7 per cent.

The 95-100 percentile requirements for Science subjects are lower.

“If we have to plumb further down (in terms of marks) to find a candidate with 95 percentile in his or her cohort, it means that the paper was tough. If someone figures in the top 5% of her cohort by scoring high marks then that paper is relatively easier,” a senior official said.

In Chemistry, the requisite score for 95 percentile is 129.2 or 64.5 percent; Physics 105.05 or 71.3 percent. For Commerce subjects Accountancy and Business Studies, the corresponding scores required are 170.7 or 85.4 per cent and 182.3 or  91.15 per cent respectively.

Professors in Central universities are not willing to risk a guess on what the above trend means for admissions this year. According to Delhi University Dean (Admissions) Haneet Gandhi, until all students submit their CUET scores and their preferences, it will be hard to gauge what a candidate’s chances for a particular programme and college may be.

It is also because DU will not issue separate merit lists for each of its 79 undergraduate programmes this year. Instead, there will be a common merit list for programmes that have the same eligibility criteria for admissions.

However, a large number of candidates in the high percentile band generally means a more competitive admission process. One of the justifications behind the introduction of the CUET was the ever soaring cut-offs for admissions to courses in high demand in DU.

English also has the highest number of 100 percentile scorers (8,236 candidates) across all CUET subjects, followed by Political Science (2057), Business Studies (1660), Biology/Biotechnology (1328), Economics/Business economics (1187), and Psychology (1186).