Tamil Nadu: Engineering counselling begins! Here are some expert tips to get seats

The online counselling for Engineering courses for general category students began on Friday, July 28, in Tamil Nadu. Experts have advised students to fill in the maximum number of choices of colleges and carefully pick the course they want to enrol in, as the competition is expected to be severe.

In the first round, 22,761 students, who scored cut-off marks between 177 and 200, will participate in the counselling. "Candidates who have scored between 177 to 185 cut-off marks need to give a maximum number of choices as this year the number of students in this range is much more than the previous year," said career consultant and analyst Jayprakash Gandhi, as per a report by The New Indian Express.

"The students should analyse last year's allotments and fill in their choices accordingly. This year, the number of high scorers has increased significantly. If enough choices are not given, many meritorious students will not be able to get seats of their choice," he added.

Experts also advised that instead of blindly following the rat race and opting for Computer Science and Information Technology (IT)-related courses, students should choose core courses with computational skills. "The IT market is still down. Many students who were hired by MNCs are yet to be taken on board by companies. Students should understand that admission in Computer Science and IT streams will not guarantee them a job," said K Selvarajan, principal of a private engineering college in the state, as per TNIE.