CHENNAI: Only 102 students have scored a perfect 200 out of 200 cut off marks in the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) this year compared to 133 last year, according to the rank list of 1,78,959 engineering aspirants released by higher education minister K Ponmudy on Monday. Last year, the rank list only featured 1.58 lakh students.
Experts said the major cause for the decline in centums in the TNEA is the tough Mathematics question paper in the Class 12 State Board exams. As the number of students scoring centums has come down, the top rankers won’t face any problem in getting the seats of their choice. However, the students who scored between 100-140 cut off marks will face fierce competition as there are 30,000 more students in that band this year, said experts.
“Out of the 102 centum scorers, only two are from the CBSE Board and rest are from State Board,” said Ponmudy. Career consultant and TNEA analyst, Jayprakash Gandhi attributed this to the difficult CBSE Class 12 Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics question papers.
The minister also said the engineering couselling, which was scheduled to begin from July 2, might be delayed by a few weeks. “To avoid seats going vacant in premier engineering college, the engineering counselling will be conducted after the first round of MBBS counselling is over,” said Ponmudy.
‘20k more students for engg counselling’
He said the first round of MBBS counselling is likely to take place in the second week of July. Girls have outperformed boys in the top 10 ranks of the TNEA, taking six of the spots. Girls also took the top three ranks, with Nethra B of Thoothukudi coming first followed by Harinika M of Dharmapuri and Roshni Banu S of Melavaladi respectively.
Only one student from government schools, Mahalakshmi S of Dharmapuri, was able to secure a perfect 200 out of 200 cut off. “TNEA counseling will witness very tough competition this year as over 20,000 more students (as compared to last year) will be vying for seats.
The students need to give a maximum number of college options to ensure their seat,” said Gandhi. While 2,29,175 candidates registered for the online engineering counselling, 1,87,847 candidates have paid fees.
Following the scrutiny of applications, 1,78,959 candidates were found eligible and 3,828 applications were rejected and 5,060 applications were found to be duplicates. Among the qualified candidates 1,06,384 are boys and 72,558 are girls while 17 of them are transgender persons.
Girl students take six out of top 10 ranks in list
Girls outperformed boys in the top 10 ranks of TNEA, taking six of the spots. Girls also took the top three ranks. Nethra B of Thoothukudi came first followed by Harinika M of Dharmapuri and Roshni Banu S of Melavaladi respectively. Only one govt school student, Mahalakshmi S of Dharmapuri, scored a centum.