People in their mid-30s will compete with teenagers this year in the Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAMCET) for a seat in medical as well as engineering colleges.
The oldest guys taking the T-EAMCET this year are two 36-year old students and appearing for both engineering and medical streams while the youngest candidate, who will be taking only the engineering exam, was born in 2000.
Statistics reveal that 22 students born in 1981 are appearing for the medical exam apart from five in the engineering stream. About 150 students in their 30s will be taking the exam when they should have ideally completed the course by now.
“There are always die-hard fans of medical course who keep trying year after year but this year, people in their mid-30s have also applied for the engineering stream,” says EAMCET Convenor, N.V. Ramana Rao.
However, maximum students taking the exams are born between 1996 and 1998 (2,19,141 candidates) and they account for more than 90 per cent of the 2,31,693 applicants so far.
A considerable number is also born in the early 90s. Around 2,000 students will be trying their luck in the medical exam for the fourth of fifth time, going by statistics.
Officials are keeping a tab on the ‘oldies’ as previous experiences have shown that such candidates try to indulge in malpractice in order to help younger students for monetary gains.
But in the last few years, stringent measures introduced in the application form itself have failed any such attempts.
“We are gathering information about the ‘oldies’ to check their seriousness,” Prof. Rao said. However, there are some genuine among them testing their luck for the sheer desire to get a MBBS degree.
