DU Admissions: Top 5 Science Colleges

Delhi University (DU) is expecting to receive around four lakh applications to fill a handful of 54,000 seats. Students are known to face problems at two levels while seeking admissions at DU – meeting the high cut-offs and selecting the perfect college for themselves.

Well, we definitely cannot help you out with the former but can provide you guidance on which are the best colleges to pursue a course in the Arts stream, Commerce stream as well as the Science stream at DU. In this article, we tell you the history behind the establishment of the famous science colleges of DU, how many seats they have in science courses, courses on offer by them and the college’s famous alumni.

Hindu College

Established in 1899, Hindu College was one of the three constituent colleges which were already present at the time of the formation of Delhi University in 1922. The college started in a small building in Kinari Bazar, Chandni Chowk. At that time the college had a student named Sir Shri Ram on its rolls who later went on to become the chairman of the College Governing Body and also established Lady Shri Ram College.

Hindu College moved to its present location at DU’s North Campus in 1953. Today, the college is spread over an area of 25 acres and offers education to around 2,000 students.

Courses on offer

Hindu College offers undergraduate courses in science disciplines such as Physical Sciences, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Botany and Zoology.

Seats for admission

Hindu College offers a total of 302 seats in its science stream programmes.

Famous alumni

Some famous alumni who pursued different courses at Hindu College are:

• Manoj Kumar – Actor
• Vinod Rai – 11th Comptroller and Auditor General of India
• Meenakshi Lekhi – National spokesperson of Bhartiya Janta Party
• Imtiaz Ali – Director
• Vishal Bhardwaj – Director
• Tisca Chopra – Actress
• Arjun Rampal, Actor
• Venkatesh Kini – President, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia
• Shatrujit Singh – Prince of Kapurthala
• Mira Aggarwal – Politician (Mayor of Delhi, India)
• Roshan Abbas, TV and radio host
• Arnab Goswami – Editor-in-Chief of Times Now
• Colonel Sonam Wangchuk – Maha Vir Chakra, Kargil War hero
• Gautam Gambhir, Cricketer
• Murli Kartik, Cricketer
• Ajay Jadeja, Cricketer
• P N Dhar – Principal Secretary to Indira Gandhi Prime Minister's office
• Kadambari Murali – Editor-in-chief of Sports Illustrated India
• Loveleen Tandan – Director
• Abhishek Chaubey – Director

St Stephen’s College

Founded in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission in Delhi, St Stephen’s College offers both undergraduates and postgraduate programmes to students. The official website states, “The Cambridge Mission comprised a number of Dons from various colleges at Cambridge University, and one of them, the (later Canon) Samuel Scott Allnutt was the founder and the first Principal of the College”. Further the website informs, “The University of the Punjab (at Lahore) received its charter more than one year after the founding of St. Stephen's College which became one of the two institutions first affiliated to it. Six students of the College sat for the Intermediate Arts exam of the Calcutta University in 1882, and two students passed the Punjab and two the Calcutta F.A. examination in 1883. St. Stephen's College became one of the three original constituent colleges of the University of Delhi when the latter was established in 1922”.

Courses on offer

St Stephen’s College offers undergraduate courses in science disciplines such as Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. The college also offers post graduate programmes such as, MA/MSc Mathematics, MA/MSc Operations Research, MSc Chemistry and MSc Physics.

Seats for admission

The following is the seat break-up at St.Stephen’s College for different science stream Discipline-I courses:

Discipline	Seats
Chemistry	60
Mathematics	50
Physics	60

Famous alumni

Some famous “Stephanians” who pursued various courses at the college are:

• Khushwant Singh – Author
• Amitav Ghosh – Author
• Ramachandra Guha – Author
• Prajapati Trivedi – Economist and 1st Secretary, Performance Management Division, Cabinet Secretariat
• Arun Shourie – Journalist and Economist with the World Bank
• Kapil Sibal – MP, Law Minister of India
• Shashi Tharoor – MP, former Minister of State, former Under-Secretary-General of the UN
• Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed – Former President of India
• Mani Shankar Aiyar – MP, former Cabinet Minister
• Montek Singh Ahluwalia – Rhodes Scholar, Economist and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission
• Barkha Dutt – Indian television journalist, columnist, group editor with NDTV
• Sagarika Ghose – Anchor
• Unmukt Chand – Cricketer
• Salman Khurshid, MP – Minister of External Affairs (India), former Law Minister
• Arun Maira – Member of the Planning Commission
• Sachin Pilot – Chief Rajasthan Congress
• Virbhadra Singh – Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh
• Vijayendra Nath Kaul – Former Comptroller and Auditor General of India
• Kabir Bedi – Actor
• Konkana Sen Sharma – Actor

Hans Raj College

Established in 1948, Hans Raj College is a co-educational institute which offers “education in all the three streams - arts, science and commerce, and is located on the Mahatma Hans Raj College Road, in a locality named Malkaganj (fairly close to the fashionable & bustling street called 'Bungalow Road' in main Kamla Nagar area) in the University’s North campus”.

Founded by DAV College Managing Committee, Hans Raj College is presently located at DU’s North Campus and is, “one of the lights in the DAV family of over 700 institutions and one of the largest constituent college of Delhi University. As of today, in excess of 5000 students on its rolls interact here with scholars of eminence on its faculty,” states the college’s official website.

Courses on offer

Hans Raj College offers undergraduate programmes such as B.Sc. (Hons) Anthropology BSc (Hons) Botany, BSc (Hons) Chemistry, BTech Computer Science, BTech Electronics, BSc (Hons) Geology, BSc (Hons) Mathematics, BSc (Hons) Physics and BSc (Hons) Zoology.

The college also offers post-graduate programmes to science students which are – MSc Anthropology, MSc Botany, MSc Chemistry, MSc Geology, MSc Mathematics, MSc Operational Research, MSc Physics and MSc Zoology.

Hans Raj College also offers students a UG+PG integrated programme, which is, MSc Earth Science

Seats for admission

Hans Raj College offers a total of 558 seats in its science stream programmes to students.

Famous alumni

Some famous alumni who pursued different courses at Hans Raj College are:

• Shah Rukh Khan – Actor
• Tarsem Singh – Hollywood Director
• Vijay Kumar Malhotra – Politician
• Vinod Dua – journalist
• Aarti Bajaj – Film editor
• Abhinav Kashyap – Filmmaker
• Aditya Jha – Entrepreneur
• Ajay Maken – MP, Sports Minister
• Rannvijay Singh – Actor, VJ MTV India
• Rohit Khanna – General Manager, IBM Corp.
• S Sriram Kumar – CEO, Anil Agencies, Ltd.
• Sabyasachi Chakrabarty – Actor
• Anurag Kashyap – Filmmaker
• Dr. Palash Sen – Actor, musician
• Partha Dasgupta – Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics, Cambridge University
• Rabindra Narayan – Director/President PTC NETWORK of TV Channels
• Rajesh Chopra – CFO Mewah Group
• Lobsang Sangay – Kalon Tripa (Prime Minister), Tibetan Government-in-exile
• Manoj Srivastava – Founder and Chairman, Bollywood The Film City
• Naveen Jindal – Industrialist, politician
• Subhash Saini – NASA scientist
• Shiney Ahuja – Actor
• Gopal Subramaniam – Solicitor General of India
• Jai Prakash Agarwal – Member of Parliament, Chairman House Committee, Lok Sabha, party-Congress
• Susmit Sen – Musician, Indian Ocean

Miranda House

Established in 1948 by Sir Maurice Gwyer, Miranda House is built of red brick and the college’s original design was made and planned by Walter Sykes George. The official website says, “Miranda offers liberal education in humanities and science to more than 2,500 students. The faculty is renowned for their meritorious profile, versatile talent and dedication to the cause of education”.

Located at DU’s North campus enclave, Miranda House’s hostel is one of the oldest residential buildings of the University. The hostel has recently been renovated under the Heritage Building Project.

Courses on offer

Programmes on offer at undergraduate level for science stream students at Miranda House are BSc (hons) Physics, BSc (hons) Chemistry, BSc (hons) Botany, BSc (hons) Zoology and BSc (hons) Mathematics.

Seats for admission

Miranda House offers a total of 352 seats in its science stream programmes to students.

Famous alumni

Some famous alumni who pursued different courses at Miranda House are:

• Brinda Karat – Political leader
• Minissha Lamba – Actress
• Nandita Das – Actress
• Aditi Phadnis – Political journalist
• Meira Kumar – First woman Speaker of Lok Sabha & Member of Parliament, India
• Anita Desai – Author
• Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee – Vice Chairperson, Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti
• Arti Mehra – Mayor of Delhi
• Sujata Madhok – Activist and journalist
• Mira Nair – Film maker

Sri Venkateswara College

Established in 1961 by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Trust, Venkateswara College on the onset was located in a school building at Deen Dayal Uppadhyay Marg. The college was established with 271 students and 13 faculty members.

Venkateswara College is currently located at DU’s South Campus University Enclave and is spread over an area of 15 acres. The college presently has 3,304 students studying at the college under different streams and courses.

Courses on offer

Venkateswara College offers the following courses to students under the science stream – Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, Botany, Chemistry, Electronics, Life Science, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics and Zoology.

Seats for admission

Venkateswara College offers a total of 459 seats in its science stream programmes to students.

Famous alumni

Some famous alumni who pursued different courses at Venkateswara College are:

• Gaurav Kapur - VJ, Actor, Sports Presenter
• Suhail Yusuf Khan - Sarangi Player and Vocalist, Advaita
• Chayan Adhikari - Vocalist, Advaita
• Tania Sachdev - Chess Player
• Shabana Raza (Neha Bajpai) - Bollywood Actress
• Aditi Singh Sharma - Indian Singer
• Siddharth Kher - Bollywood Actor
• Raghu Ram - Reality show producer
• Kamal Rashid Khan - Actor