Competition to be tougher for engineering seats this year thanks to great TNEA results, believe experts

With over 1 lakh students scoring 150 marks in Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission (TNEA) cut-off, experts claim there will be utter chaos and confusion among students while filling choices. As the number of top scorers has increased by almost three times this year, the competition has become very tough. Last year, the number of students scoring above 150 marks was around 32000 only.

The students cannot go by or rely on last year's cut off figures of different colleges while selecting their preferred colleges and courses during choice filling this year as there will be huge variations in the marks and number of students. Hence, the experts have advised that students should fill in as many choices as they can to ensure a seat for themselves in their preferred college or in their choice of stream.

Career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi said students scoring between 190 to 200 marks in TNEA rank list was 3445 last year while this year it is 7513. "This time even a student with 190 cut-off may not be able to get a seat of his/ her choice in top colleges as the number of candidates scoring the same cut off has doubled up. The only solution to the problem is that students need to give a wide number of choices on the basis of their preferential order to make their chance better," said Gandhi.

He further stressed that the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) should create a special video both in Tamil and English language to guide students about the choice filling process and should make them aware to fill in more choices while selecting colleges and courses online. "Educating students on selecting a wide number of choices is the only way to help them otherwise many students will be disheartened due to their faulty choice filling," added Gandhi. This year almost 100 per cent pass percentage was reported in both CBSE and State Board class 12 results and the number of high scorers increased significantly as exams were not conducted and marks were awarded to students on the basis of their class 10,11 and class 12 internal examinations. Due to this practice, the number of top scorers in TNEA has also increased, said experts.

P Selvaraj, secretary of Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges, said "As there is so much uncertainty about getting the preferred seat in your choice of college, many students will opt for admission through management quota to ensure their seat."

c. Private engineering colleges are relieved as they are expecting this year a smaller number of seats will remain vacant. "Last year, around 50 per cent of the seats in private engineering colleges remained vacant but this year we are expecting the number to come down to 25 per cent," said Consortium's joint secretary, T D Eswaramoorthy.

The TNEA had received 1,74,930 applications, but only 1,39,033 candidates were on the rank list as the rest were deemed ineligible based on the verification of certificates. At least 1,51,870 seats in 440 engineering colleges are available this year.