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With MBBS Admissions in limbo, Aspirants Keep Engg. As Backup


With the medical admissions in the state on hold, aspirants are keeping engineering admissions coordinated by Anna University as a backup. On Friday, after the university released its rank list for single-window counselling, at least eight of the 23 toppers with a cutoff mark of 200 in engineering said they would pursue medicine if they get through. Though counselling for medical admissions is on, the Madras high court has told the government not to issue admit cards to aspirants. With the air not yet clear, most of the medical aspirants have applied for engineering as a second option. "The rule that allows previous year's students to apply for the medical counselling has created a fear in our minds. With uncertainty prevailing, we wanted to apply for engineering," said one of the toppers.

 

Anna University listed 1,50,950 candidates for counselling which will begin from July 1. Of these, the university has made public names of 15 toppers, across various categories, from the academic stream (students in this stream had maths, physics and biology in their Class 12 exams) on its website. Of the 15, 11 have a cutoff of 200 and they feature in the top 23. But, when TOI contacted them, only three wanted to pursue engineering, while eight others have plans to join medicine.

 

As many as 1,54,238 candidates had applied for the single-window counselling in May, and on Monday this week, the university's Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) section had allotted random numbers to all the candidates. On Friday, after a scrutiny, 1,50,950 were found eligible for counselling. More than 3,000 applications were rejected. "The scrutinising process is computerised, and we have set some eligibility criteria. The system filters applications that do not meet the minimum requirement and ranks are generated only for those eligible," said an Anna University faculty. Last year, 1.7 lakh candidates out of the 1.75 lakh who had applied for the counselling were eligible for admission. With around 20,000 candidates less, the number of seats going vacant is expected to rise this time.

Posted on 20 Jun 2015