While the first day of counselling for medical and dental seat aspirants of COMEDK was smooth sailing, the second day, on Wednesday, was chaotic. The counselling was being conducted for students with ranks 2,001 to 16,695, resulting in parents and wards waiting for hours as the process unfolded. Making matters worse, parents were not given periodic updates and they were seen screaming at officials for answers to their queries. Still worse, the counselling session that was scheduled to end at 3.45 p.m. stretched on late into the night. Students, on the other hand, waited patiently to watch their future academic and career options unfold.
Several teary eyed faces were seen when the general merit medical seats were taken by afternoon. At around 8 p.m. on Wednesday, no general merit seats for medical students were left. Only 78 of the 683 medical seats were remaining in the minority categories of two colleges — SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital and Father Muller Medical College.
Shivaraju, a businessman whose daughter failed to obtain a medical seat under COMEDK, said, “I am unsure if my daughter will get a medical seat this year under CET. She will have to wait to write the entrance exam next year. While most students are compromising by settling for dental seats, I want to ensure that my daughter gets a medical seat next year.”
Joy Mathew, whose daughter wanted to obtain a medical seat, termed the announcement of the CET counselling date as a “ray of hope” that came a little too late. “Although the Karnataka Examinations Authority has caused a lot of inconvenience to us by announcing the dates late, we will at least be able to get a rough idea after the CET results are announced on July 10. By then we can decide if we want to surrender our COMEDK seat or keep them.” When asked about the delay of the process, said, “The process of verification of documents took a lot of time, which caused the delay,” Mr Srikanth added. The first round of counselling ended on Wednesday and the second round will be on July 19.
