Engineering aspirants can check the last three years' minimum cut-off for colleges of their preference on www.tnea.ac.in. The facility was launched by Anna University on Wednesday, the day the Class 12 board exams results were announced. Students can use the previous years' data to find out with their score what chances they have in securing a seat in a particular college and course.
On clicking the "minimum cut off" link in the home page, the website leads to a page asking for the community of the student. Students can then check the minimum cut-off for colleges they would like to apply to. "If a student scores 180, for example, he can look for colleges, whose cut-off ranges from 175 to 185. The chances of him getting into those colleges are higher," a senior admissions official told Express.
Students will have to calculate their normalised marks in order to compare with the cut-off. That is, out of 200 marks, mathematics has a weightage of 100, physics 50 and chemistry 50. For example, a student who scores 90 in mathematics, 80 in physics and 70 in chemistry would have a normalised score of 165 (90+40+35).
This is assuming that at least one student from the state board has scored centum in each subject. If not, all scores will be normalised with respect to the highest score any student has obtained in that subject. For example, if the highest score any student has got in Mathematics is 90, then a student who scores 80 will have a normalised mark of 88.88 ((80/90)*100).
In the case of candidates who have qualified from National Boards, namely, CBSE and ISCE, the highest mark obtained in the relevant subject by the candidates at the national-level alone will be taken into consideration for normalisation. The Other Boards will be requested to furnish the maximum marks scored in the relevant subjects. In case, such marks are not available before the preparation of rank, the maximum marks scored in that Board will be considered as 100.
In case two students have the same normalised score, then the student with the higher score in mathematics will be ranked higher. A second-level tie-breaker would be the physics score and third level will be the fourth subject (biology, computer science, etc). If the candidates are still tied over scores, then the older student would get preference. And a tie of score beyond this would be sorted with allotment of a random number.
The overall rank and community-wise rank lists will be published in Anna University website https://www.tnea.ac.in. The college and the branch will be provisionally allotted through online counselling only, as per their choice, based on their overall rank and community rank, the official said.