Just like last year, engineering cut-off marks this year too, are expected to go down.
But to what extent, and how this will affect applicants, is still uncertain.
To help students get an idea, Anna University released last year’s cut-off marks early on Friday, and the list revealed that the minimum for all courses was 196. The cut-off for major courses such as ECE, mechanical and computer science was 199.
“IT-related courses were not very popular last year. That trend might prevail this year too. But courses such as metallurgy, material sciences, plastics, automobiles and bio-medicines which were not sought-after last year, may be more popular this time around,” said R. S. Rakesh, education consultant, at consultancy firm Technocrats India College Finder.
Mr. Rakesh said that in the first few days, there could be an initial drop of 0.5 marks in the cut-off, but that for those who scored less than 190, the cut-off would be higher. “There will be many students who score 150–190 in mathematics this year. Since maths marks are considered first when there is more than one applicant with the same sum-total, they will play a crucial role here.”
An Anna University professor, however, said it was too early to make assumptions as they are still don’t know the total number of engineering applicants this year.
“The number of centums might be fewer this year, but there may be more students with 199/198/197 cut-offs. That might change the situation,” he said.
“There will be an engineering seat for every eligible student at Anna University. So parents need not hurry and apply for seats elsewhere,” he said. Engineering aspirants need to submit their filled-in forms at Anna University centres by May 20. To find out about last year’s cut-off, they can go to www.annauniv.edu/tnea2013/minimumcutoff.html, he added.
There were 2.28 lakh engineering applicants last year. This year, as of Friday, the university has already sold over 1.96 lakh applications. There are 2 lakh engineering seats across 550 colleges in the State.
Until 2011, cut-off marks increased from 0.5 to 3 marks every year. But in 2011, 2,684 students scored over 198 out of 200 in mathematics, physics and chemistry, which led to a massive increase in all cut-offs. The number of centums in the three subjects had crossed 100 after a gap of five years, with nearly 120 students getting them. There were 31 such students in 2010 and 44 in 2009.
Last year though, the situation stabilised, with just 1,921 students scoring above 198 out of 200 in maths, physics and chemistry together.
This year, anxiety levels among students have increased, as the number of those who have scored centums and other high scores has not been made public by the school education department.
“Last year, more than 50 per cent of students who were called on the first day of counselling, did not show up. Everything depends on what the first 1,000 top scorers go for. Many of them will get into IITs, NITs and some would already have been accepted at deemed universities. But this time, even NIT and IIT results will be declared late,” said Mr. Rakesh.
Experts say that 8,000 additional engineering seats are expected to be added this year, while the number of seats that will remain vacant will be around 80,000.
