Tamil Nadu   

ECE, CSE most sought-after courses

K. Ramachandran

No takers for automobile engineering offered by self-financing colleges

CURIOUS CROWD: Students and parents checking the admission status for engineering courses at the touch screen kiosk at Anna University in Chennai. — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: Eighty per cent of students who have attended the single window counselling, chose only Electronics and Communication Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering or Information Technology.

After the first four days of the counselling (July 21-24), not a single student had opted for branches such as food, rubber, polymer, fashion technology, textile chemistry, Petrochemical technology, or instrumentation and control engineering. Similarly, there are no takers for automobile engineering offered by self-financing colleges.

When counselling began at four locations in the State on July 21 (for regular academic stream), the single window pool had 56,260 seats (including Anna University's constituent colleges - 1505; government and aided colleges 3,179 and unaided colleges 51576 seats). Another 212 seats were surrendered after counselling began taking the number to 56,472.

In the first two days, 1,401 seats were allotted, the third day 1,149 and the fourth day 1,481 seats making a total of 4,031 after four days. In all 5,426 students were called for counselling, but 1,357 students did not attend and 38 students attended but did not take a seat.

This shows that just more than 25 per cent of students opted out of the counselling, which is marginally higher than the last year's 24 per cent in the first four days.

These students could have already got admission in medical colleges or the national level engineering institutions such as the IITs, NITs or BITS Pilani. "It is also possible that some of the students could have chosen to join deemed universities in branches of their choice... ," says an Anna university professor.

Of the 4,031 allotments made, more than 3200 opted for ECE, CSE or IT courses, making for just over 80 per cent. "If we include Electrical and Electronics Engineering, the number going in for circuit branches reaches 86 per cent," says analyst Jayaprakash Gandhi of Salem. "The student preference for core engineering branches such as mechanical or civil engineering has come down significantly compared to last year," he adds. This also means that top rated students do not seem to prefer new and emerging fields such as materials sciences.

"Last year, the response to aeronautical in unaided colleges or biotechnology branches was high, which surprisingly is not seen this year," he adds.

On the third and fourth days 2,630 students were given allotment.

Of this 1,356 came under the open competition, 974 under BC quota and only 267 under MBC quota and 33 under the SC quota.

"This trend will mean that the cut off scores in these categories are likely to come down considerably as the counselling sessions progress," Mr. Gandhi notes.

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