The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Uncertainty continues in admissions

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Uncertainty continues in admissions

V.Jayanth

Cut-off marks may vary this year; may go up for medicine

CHENNAI: : Based on the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (TNPCEE) last weekend, academics and admission-watchers are convinced that the cut-off marks for engineering colleges will be lower this year. For, the number of students who can score full marks in the maths test will be definitely lower than last year.

"We expect that compared to over 290 students who secured a centum in mathematics last year, the number may be 250 or even less," says a Salem-based adviser, Jayaprakash Gandhi. He feels that the cut-off marks for medicine may climb higher, as the Biology paper was "very easy" and a number of students were expected to score full marks. This despite the fact that there may be some additional seats up for grabs. The entry mark for medical colleges was already high.

Confusion

But students and parents are more concerned about the process of admissions. They were expecting that all parties concerned — the Centre, the State Government, Anna University and private self-financing colleges — to sort out the "confusion" which marked the admissions last year. The matter is already before the Supreme Court and anxious parents are hoping that it will deliver a verdict at least by the first week of May.

On that will hinge the number of entrance tests and the system of quotas that these self-financing institutions will follow. As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, there are already several streams and processes.

There are 13 Deemed Universities (DUs) that follow their own admission procedure. All but two of them have announced separate entrance tests and those two institutions have decided to go by the All-India Engineering Entrance Examinations (AIEEE) or the TNPCEE.

The roughly 250 self-financing colleges seem to be falling under two camps — a consortium that conducted a Common Entrance Test last year and another association claiming an all-India membership, which has also approached the Supreme Court seeking a common entrance test for the whole country.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu