CHENNAI: The rank list for MBBS and BDS counselling, which will begin on June 20, was released on Friday and it was evident that performance this year has slipped as against last year. This year only three students got centum unlike last year when 17 students secured the magical number. The number of applicants also dropped by 9,650.
Students from Kanniyakumari, Thanjavur and Tiruvallur topped in the State. G Selvarajan, selection secretary of the Directorate of Medical Education, said that last year 261 students got more than 199 marks while this year only 187 students got 199 and above. The remaining seven students, besides the toppers, got 199.75. Out of 26,017 applications, 64 per cent were girl candidates and 35.5 per cent boys.
The official has attributed the drop in the number of applicants to change in timing of sale of applications. “This time we sold the applications after Plus-2 examination whereas earlier we sold the applications before the Plus-2 examination.” Last year, the number of applications sold was 35,667 and this year it was 26,017. Interestingly, all three toppers, who secured centum, pursued education in the neighbouring States.
Adithya Mahesh, who hails from Kanniyakumari, studied in Kerala. Similarly Vignesh V of Thanjavur studied at Erode and E J Gnanavel from Tiruvallur studied in Andhra Pradesh. The selection secretary clarified that though these students studied in other States, they were natives of Tamil Nadu and so, they come under the State quota.
Counselling for the general category will be held from June 21 to 25. The second phase of counselling will be conducted in July for the general category. The counselling will take place in the Tamil Nadu Government multi-super specialty hospital in Omandurar Estate.
Admission cut-off is based on marks obtained in Biology (100), Chemistry and Physics (100). In total, there are 20 government and two ESI medical colleges in Tamil Nadu. Besides, there are six self-financing private medical colleges. The total number of seats for MBBS is 2,853 and for BDS it is 1055.
Out of 26,017 applications sold, 203 applications are from the candidates who have applied for both MBBS and BDS. After 435 applications have been rejected, 25,379 applications are found eligible.
The total number of applications received from boys is 9,017 and from girls, it is 16,361 and one application from a transgender community. “This is the first time a transgender has applied. He is 50-year old and his name is Subramaniam but he did not qualify as he got low marks,” said the additional director.
The total number of applications from the physically challenged is 92, under sports quota, it is 316 and from exservicemen it is 377. The number of applications from the State Board students is 23,966, from CBSE/SSCE Board 1,158, 129 from the ISC and 126 from others. And 9,401 are the first-generation students.