Even before counselling for admission to engineering colleges under single window system begins this year, over 24,000 seats are up for grabs.
While 1,78,917 seats are available under single window admission, Anna University has received only 1,54,238 applications as on Monday.
While this is the status of seats under government quota, self-financing colleges have so far surrendered 21,741 seats from the management quota. Anna University officials expect another 5,000 seats under the management quota to be surrendered before general counselling begins on July 1.
With the number of engineering colleges in the State climbing up steadily in the last decade, engineering admissions hit a plateau in the State in 2013-14 when the number of vacant seats crossed the one-lakh mark. Last year, there were 1.36 lakh vacancies. This year the number of first graduate applicants has also fallen. Only 80,446 first-generation learners have applied compared to last year when 92,000 candidates had sought admission. A total of 3,104 applicants will seek admission in the vocational category and 1,51,134 candidates will be admitted through academic counselling.
Random numbers On Monday, the 10-digit random numbers were generated for the 19th counselling session in the presence of Higher Education secretary Apoorva, Vice Chancellor M. Rajaram, registrar S. Ganesan and the media, with each providing two numbers.
V. Rhymend Uthariaraj, secretary, Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission, said a candidate’s score in Mathematics (100), Physics and Chemistry (50 marks each) will determine the cut-off marks. If 300-400 candidates had the same marks, those with a higher score in mathematics would get priority.
If marks in mathematics are the same then a student with higher marks in physics would be ranked higher. If here too there is a tie, the fourth optional subject such as computer science or biology would be taken for calculation.
If the students remain tied at this position, their date of birth would be the basis to decide seniority. If a tie persists even after this, a candidate with higher random number would be given priority, Dr. Rhymend explained. Random numbers can be seen on www.annauniversity.edu.
