13k more choose engineering, but 54k Tamil Nadu seats still vacant

CHENNAI: Marking a significant increase in the uptake of engineering seats this year, the third round of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) counselling concluded on Wednesday. Around 13,500 more students opted for engineering this time compared to last year.

Academicians said this year’s admission figures are encouraging, as the percentage of seats filled at the end of the third round of counselling increased from 65.08 last year to 66.39. However, over 54,000 seats are still vacant. This is mainly due to the recent addition of about 22,000 new seats for the courses.

“This year’s enrollment percentage is the highest among figures of the last five years. This reveals that the craze for engineering courses is still prevalent,” said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi.

Last year, when the third round of counselling concluded, as many as 94,138 out of the total 1,44,652 seats available during academic category counselling (excluding vocational and 7.5% government school students quota) were filled. This year, at least 1,07,805 out of the total 1,62,392 seats have been filled.

Out of 433 colleges that took part in the counselling, only 29, including 10 private institutes, managed to fill 100% of their seats. On the flipside, seven could not even fill a single seat and as many as 33 colleges managed to enroll students only in single digits.

“Anna University should strictly review the colleges that filled less than 10% of their seats,” said the principal of a constituent college of the varsity. This year too, computer science and IT-related courses were the most preferred. Almost 45% of the seats filled belonged to these fields. Among the major core branches, mechanical and civil were the least preferred courses.