With over two lakh students eyeing professional courses and another 1.25 lakh students looking at arts and science courses, it’s quite a race in Andhra Pradesh, which has a reasonably streamlined admission process.
Admissions to engineering courses are through web-based counselling that allows students to give as many as 3,000 options — thanks to 720 colleges and 19-odd courses in each. Seats are allotted by a specially-designed software after calculating the rank obtained in the entrance exam, caste, gender, and regional reservation — a system unique to the State. The technical education department switched to web-based counselling in 2009.
Medical admissions are done by the NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) in 37 affiliated Medical colleges which include 14 Government and 19 non-minority colleges. All the seats in Government colleges and 60 per cent of seats in private medical colleges are filled by the NTRUHS through online counselling.
Giant leap
Karnataka, too, has evolved a centralised dual-window system for admissions to professional colleges. This year, the CET conducted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority has taken a giant leap ahead by introducing online counselling with an aim to introduce more transparency in seat allotments. Empowering students with unlimited choices and seat tracking from the comfort of their homes, the KEA is also looking at the new process as a measure to curb the ‘seat blocking’ menace. The online counselling is set to begin next month.
As far as non-professional courses are concerned, each college has its own method, but the process is largely merit-based. However, some private institutions have entrance exams for certain courses. Karnataka continues to attract students from other States in large numbers, particularly from the north and northeast.
