CHENNAI: The number of students who applied for this year’s single-window counselling for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) saw a sharp increase of 20.9% with the rank list released on Friday by Higher Education Minister Govi Cheziaan featuring 2,41,641 students, compared to the nearly 2 lakh students in the rank list last year. This is the sharpest increase since 2022, when the number stood at 1.58 lakh students.
The number of students securing a perfect 200 out of 200 too rose to 144 this year, twice more than the 65 students last year, as more centums were recorded in Class 12 core subjects this year. Of the 144 students, 139 are from the state board while the remaining five are from other boards.
40,000 engineering seats likely to remain vacant, say academicians
This increase is seen as an indication that the cut-off marks for top engineering colleges will rise and there will be fierce competition among students to get a seat of their choice.
There were 1,32,582 male and 1,09,055 female candidates, and four trans persons in the rank list. “Last year, only 2,862 students had scored above 195 marks, but this year, the number is 5,251. It is likely there will be a rise of 2 to 2.5 marks in the cut-off for top engineering colleges,” said career consultant Jayprakash Gandhi.
In the general category, 24,900 students had scored above 180 marks last year. This year, it surged to 52,126. “In the lower-mark ranges like 150 and above, the cut-off for colleges is likely to increase by 15 marks compared to last year,” said another career counselor, R Ashwin.
In the general category, seven girls were in the top-10 rank, while five were on the top-10 list under the 7.5% reservation category for government school students. In the general category, Sagasra J of Kancheepuram emerged as the topper.
Dharani V of Government Higher Secondary School, Kandamangalam, Cuddalore, is the topper in the 7.5 % reservation category. Cheziaan said the counselling for the special reservation category will be held between July 7 and July 11. Thereafter counselling for general category will begin from July 14 and it will conclude on August 26, he said.
However, in a deviation from the convention, the minister did not share the details of the total number of engineering seats available under TNEA this year. Sources in DoTE said Anna University is yet to complete the affiliation renewal process due to which there is no clarity on the seat matrix.
“By June 30, the affiliation process will be over and we will get the total number of seats available for engineering counselling this year,” said a senior DoTE official.
It can be noted that though the number of students registered for TNEA has seen a sharp increase, a large number of engineering seats are still likely to remain vacant. For instance, last year was one of the best admission seasons for the state engineering colleges as the enrolment percentage was highest in the last five years. Yet, over 49,579 seats remained vacant in 433 engineering colleges. Colleges had roughly added around 22,000 seats last year, mainly in computer science and AI-related courses.
Though colleges are expecting better admission figures, this year too over 40,000 seats are likely to remain vacant, academicians and career counsellors said.
Gandhi said that the applications do not mean that there will be a rise in the number of enrollments in engineering colleges. He stated that students, who don’t get NEET, may join veterinary or agriculture-related courses.