AMCET counselling, which began on Friday, did not pass without hiccups as power failures and a server slowdown played spoiler.
Though a majority of students chose to select their choice of college from home, a handful opted for the assistance provided by helpline centres in the city for creating their login ID and option entry.
Electrical communication engineering (ECE), electrical and electronics engineering (EEE) and computer science engineering (CSE) remained the top choices of 15,504 students who exercised their options on Friday.
Students who secured an EAMCET rank up to 40,000 were eligible to create their log-in.
At the helpline centre at Sanketika Bhavan at Masab Tank, around 40 students opted for option-entry and were relieved that the process took hardly any time.
“There is a better chance of job placement in ECE and EEE as you can opt for jobs in software as well as hardware,” said P. Sushanth, who secured a rank of 5500.
Another student, V. Swathi with a rank 26,941, said, “Though people say IT is similar to CSE, there is no guarantee of placement and the market is prone to ups and downs.
Opportunities in ECE and EEE are better.
”Students had to wait for a long time at the helpline centre in AV College as the server was slow due to multiple users attempting access at the same time. The college list was given only on Thursday and some of the names were still being entered on Friday. Due to this, the server got high traffic in the morning hours.
“We have already helped 10 students enter their choice of college,” said Vamsi Krishna Reddy, the centre coordinator.
Some of the students who attempted to create their log-in from home also complained of system errors.
“We were asked to come at 10 am in the morning as the certificate verification process gets underway simultaneously. The helpline centre staff were efficient in filling the options despite the frequent power failures. I have opted for ECE and CSE as they provide better openings,” said H. Krishna Kanth, who secured 4385 rank.
Another student at the centre, M. Rajni, opted for civil engineering (CE) despite securing the 17,000th rank.
“CE is always in demand due to the boom in the infrastructure industry,” said the aspirant.
Civil engineering and mechanical engineering too had many takers as they are considered evergreen fields. Commenting on the choices exercised by the students, EAMCET camp officer, Dr. K. Raghunath Rao said most of the students who had secured high ranks opted for ECE and CSE.
“The demand for conventional courses such as ME and CE is also high as the job market is picking up. The number of students opting for IT has drastically reduced over the years.”
He recommended that students should enter their options at the designated helpline centres instead of relying on internet cafe staff owing to the threat of password theft.
The options entered by the students can be changed within two days of registration or till September 10 for ranks between 1 and 1,00,000 and till September 11 for ranks from 1,00,001 to the last.