CHENNAI: In the second round of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) counselling which was held between September 25 and October 13, 18,521 students from the general category have been provisionally allotted seats out of the 31,095 eligible candidates, which is almost 5% less than last year.
This year almost 59.56% of candidates have been allotted seats in the general category in the second round while last year 65.95% of candidates were allotted seats.
In the second round, out of the 31,095 eligible candidates, only 24,430 filled the choices. According to experts, there is a decline in the figures as students are preferring colleges after examining the infrastructure, campus placements and skill development programmes of colleges. The average-performing colleges are struggling to fill the seats, they said.
“Out of the 446 engineering colleges, at least 323 colleges couldn’t even fill 10% of their seats after two rounds of counselling. Of these 323 colleges, at least seven are constituent colleges of the state-run Anna University,” said career consultant Jayprakash Gandhi.
In the 7.5% reservation category, 1,426 candidates have been allotted seats. After the second round, only 19.92% of the seats have been filled. The total number of seats available for academic counselling is 1,39,251 in 446 engineering colleges while so far only 27,740 seats have filled up.
As expected in the second round also, the majority of the students opted for computer science and IT-related courses and circuit branches. Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) officials said from Thursday the choice for the third round of counselling started. “At least 49,134 candidates are eligible to participate in the third round. The candidates can fill in their choices between October 13 to October 15,” said T Purushothaman, Secretary of TNEA.