Nearly 1.25 lakh candidates took admission to various engineering colleges in the government quota while over 80,000 seats remained vacant as the single-window academic counselling of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission held at Anna University, Chennai ended on Friday.
A total of 2,05,463 government-quota seats in academic, vocational, sports and differently-abled categories were available this year. Out of this, 1,24,774 seats were allotted by the end of counselling on Friday, while 80,689 seats remained vacant. On Friday alone, 4,445 students were called and 2,220 students received their allotment orders.
This year, Mechanical Engineering was the most preferred branch, with 32,794 students preferring it. This was followed by Electronics and Communication Engineering (24,992), Civil (18,922), Computer Science (15,684) and Electrical and Electronics Engineering (13,734).
Out of the 1,24,774 students, 76,743 were male and 48,031 were female. As many as 75,715 students were first generation college goers.
As many as 21,012 students preferred engineering colleges located in Kancheepuram district. Next came Coimbatore district, with 19,935 students, followed by Thiruvallur, with 11,604 students.
The academic counselling, which began on June 21 ended on Friday. Totally, 1,78,664 students were called for the academic counselling alone, of whom 1,20,311 students attended.
While 1,07,435 students joined private engineering colleges, 5,868 joined government and government-aided colleges, 4,831 university constituent colleges and 2,177 Anna University departments.
As many as 57,868 candidates (32.39 per cent) did not turn up for counselling. At the end of the academic counselling, 77,043 seats in self-financing colleges remained vacant. Apart from this, 657 seats in Anna University constituent colleges (98 in Thoothukudi, 18 in Villupuram, 1 in Tiruchy, 87 in Thirukkuvalai, 92 in Ramanathapuram, 70 in Pattukkottai, 41 in Panruti, 71 in Nagarcoil, 67 in Dindigul, 19 in Arani and 78 in Ariyalur) were also remained unfilled.
Anna University is planning to conduct a supplementary counselling on Sunday for those who have became eligible to join engineering courses after writing the Plus Two supplementary examination. Separate counselling for seats converted from SC Arunthathiyar category to SC category will be held on Monday.