| Thursday, Jun 08, 2006
Now more seats, lower cut-off marks for engineering courses
Chennai: If the State Government move to secure 70 per cent of the seats in private self-financing colleges succeeds, the number of seats available in its quota for admission through Anna University's counselling and Single Window System (SWS) could cross 47,000 this year.
Sources familiar with the admission process say the number of seats with Anna University and its constituent colleges will be nearly the same — 1,565 and 2,770 respectively. But if non-minority private colleges surrender 70 per cent and the minority institutions 60 per cent, as discussed at Tuesday's meeting, over 43,000 seats from this pool of colleges could come into the SWS for counselling next month.
Last year, the private colleges initially offered 30,623 seats and then surrendered another 7,578 during the counselling process. In effect, there could be more than 5,000 additional seats in the Government quota, if Education Minister K. Ponmudi's formula works.
The increase in the number of seats and a definite drop in the cut-off marks will mean that students with a much lower aggregate than last year can hope to not only gain admission in the Government quota seats, but also into some of the higher ranked colleges.
Best performance
Turning Point India has done an exclusive analysis for The Hindu on the performance of students in the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examinations 2006. According to analyst Jayaprakash Gandhi, the performance of Maths-Physics-Chemistry-Computer Science group students was the best. He says CBSE students have also done well in the TNPCEE, despite the new syllabus. The worst performance has been in the Biology paper.
Mr. Gandhi believes that the cut-off marks may drop by 5 to 6 in the Engineering stream and by at least 6 marks for the medical stream, compared to last year.
A clear indication of this comes in the marks scored. (See chart)
Only 137 students who took the Biology paper in the TNPCEE scored 50 out of 50 marks, as against 1,051 last year. And even at the 48 out of 50 level, the numbers were just a fourth — 1,054 students this year, compared to 4,343 in 2005.
AIEEE effect
In his analysis and interaction with a variety of students, he says the preparation for the AIEEE — which more students from Tamil Nadu took this year — has no doubt helped them improve their performance in the TNPCEE.
While the CBSE students knew for sure that they had to take the State CET, students in the State Board stream were left in doubt for a very long time whether they should take the TNPCEE or not.
Academics advise students and parents not to rush for the management quota seats this year, as the prospects of admission through Anna University's SWS itself may be bright even for the middle-level performers.
"It is only if you have scores of less than 240 out of 300, but want Computer Science in the top five or 10 colleges that you should look for a management quota seat. Others, with a wider choice, can afford to wait for the counselling," says a dean in a private college
Courtesy: The Hindu
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