Mumbai, July 10: Just last week, Newsline spoke to Vikas Patel while he spent anxious five hours at St Xavier’s College premises at Dhobi Talao, waiting for the second cut-off list for admissions into First Year Junior College. Even though the second list had dipped by 1.5 per cent at 82 for the Science stream, Patel couldn't make it then.

On Monday, Patel—with 80 per cent on his marksheet—lost all hope as the college didn’t put up any third list. ‘‘All the seats in all the faculties are full,’’ said a college official.

Elsewhere too, while colleges released the third list, principals cited the fast shrinking number of seats available in all streams as a deterrent for the fourth list in top colleges.

At Bandra’s St Andrew’s College, for example, only four seats were left in the Commerce stream, and 20 each in Science and Arts. At Sathaye College, Vile Parle, hardly 30 to 40 seats were to be filled in the Science stream, while the Commerce faculty was better with 40 to 50 available seats.

‘‘We too have hardly 20 to 25 seats left for Commerce. In this scenario, I don’t see fourth list happening in my college,’’ said principal Madhav Welling of N M College of Commerce and Economics, Vile Parle.

Many colleges—like K C College at Churchgate and Bhavan’s College, Andheri—closed admissions stream-wise. At K C College, while lists for Science and Arts were put up, there was no list for Commerce. At Bhavan’s, there was no list for Arts.

However, second-rung colleges might offer hope to students as most of them released their third list with lower percentages for all the streams. ‘‘Top colleges are students’ first preference. Only if they can’t make it there, do they come to second preference colleges where cut-off percentages on first list are not as much as top colleges. Therefore, they don’t only have seats, but also, in most cases, release fourth list,’’ said a principal.