This year, only three students have scored a perfect 200 in the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission merit list.
Among the top three, one student is from a CBSE school. Last year, not only had all the top 10 rankers scored 200 marks, but they were also from State-board schools.
This year, there are two students from CBSE schools and one from the Andhra Board. Only two girls figure in the merit list this year. Pratibha Senthil, from a CBSE school, has secured the third rank. Joan Jennifer, with a score of 199.5 marks, ranked 8th, and is from the State board.
TNEA officials said the random number this year was used for 95 candidates who had the same scores and date of birth. Last year, the random number was used for 21 applicants.
New method
Officials said to arrive at a cut-off, marks scored in core subjects such as physics and chemistry were rounded off to 50, instead of 100, as was done until last year. This year, the total marks in the higher secondary examination was 600 instead of the usual 1,200 marks for State board. Soon after the HSC results were released, self-financing college officials said candidates with significantly lower scores were approaching them for admission under management category.
An official from a self-financing college in the city said this year, they saw students from CBSE schools having higher scores than those from State board schools.
Jayaprakash Gandhi, an independent education consultant, said the cut-off could drop from three marks to 25 marks, depending on the branch chosen.
Higher Education Minister K.P. Anbalagan said he expected as many as 85,000 seats in the government quota to be filled this year as against 77,046 seats last year.
