In an obvious pointer of admission trends, colleges struggled to attract students to dental and engineering courses with fewer than half of the engineering seats being taken in the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) counselling that ended on Friday. Medical seats were the most in demand, while architecture too had a fair share of takers.
COMEDK said all the 695 medical seats were taken, while only 216 of the 748 dental seats were filled, a meagre 29 per cent. Only 43 per cent engineering seats were taken (7,380 of 17,250). As many as 179 of 269 architecture seats have been selected by students, which means 66 per cent seats have been filled.
No takers
COMEDK’s press release said there has been an improvement in statistics for engineering this year as last year only 36 per cent seats were filled. While 21 engineering colleges successfully filled all their seats, 31 could not find any takers.
Of the 77,740 candidates from across the country who wrote the COMEDK entrance test in May, 9,135 qualified to select 695 medical seats in 12 medical colleges and 748 dental seats in 25 dental colleges. As many as 45,185 candidates qualified for the 17,250 engineering seats in 135 engineering colleges.
Of the 1,612 candidates who participated in the medical/dental seat selection process, 66 per cent were from Karnataka. Similarly, out of 12,135 candidates who participated in the engineering seat selection process, 68 per cent were from the State.
Seat blocking
The press release said instances of seat blocking were detected early on, citing the examples of ‘organised blocking’ where 15 candidates who appeared for entrance test and selected medical seats in 2011 appeared again this year. “These 15 were disqualified.”
Eight cases of ‘blocking by impersonation’ were detected.
“The medical seats selected by them have been cancelled, show cause notices issued to them and all the eight have confessed. COMEDK has forfeited the tuition fee collected from them,” the communiqué said.
COMEDK has also said that 55 cases of ‘entrepreneurial blocking’ (local agents and touts producing duplicate or fake or colour photocopied marks cards to select seats) were detected.
All institutions have been advised to adopt biometric verification at the time of admissions.
