Chennai: Online engineering counselling from July 25-August 20

Chennai: Ending the month-long uncertainty over online counselling, the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee announced the dates for online engineering counselling on Saturday. The counselling will be held from July 25 to August 20 in five rounds. While 1.7 lakh engineering seats available for online counselling, there are only around one lakh eligible candidates this year.

The engineering aspirants with cut-off marks 190 and above will be allowed to take part in the first round of the online counselling. “Over 10,000 candidates are eligible to participate in the first round of counselling. The payment of initial deposit began on Saturday. Students will be allowed to make payment till Tuesday,” said V .Rhymend Uthariaraj, secretary, TNEA.

The general category students have to pay Rs 5,000 as deposit and SC, SCA and ST category students have to pay Rs 1,000. For the first round, the students can make choices entry and lock them from July 25 to 27. 

The tentative allotment will be published on July 28 and students will get two days to confirm it. Final allotment order will be given on July 30. The students have to report for admission on or before August 3.

The number of candidates in the subsequent rounds will get increased. For the second round, over 20,000 students will take part. The engineering admissions committee will allow students with cut-off marks ranging from 189 to 175 in the second round that will be held from July 30 to August 4. 

The students who did not get any allotment in the first round or opted to take part in the second round also be included in the second round. Around 25,000 students will be allowed in third and fourth rounds. In the fifth and final round, 26,500 students would participate. 

“Students who enter only a few choices may not any seat allotment as well. To avoid such situations all the aspirants have to enter a maximum number of choices,” Rhymend Uthariaraj said.

TNEA has released the previous years’ cut-off marks details for all branches and colleges. Students with the help of information booklet and these cut-off marks, need to prepare a choice list by placing their preferred choices at the top.

“Since entering choice is very important in online counselling, students need to consult their parents and teachers before locking them. Those who cannot fill the choices from their home, have to use nearby TNEA Facilitation Centres. They should not use browsing centres or facilitation centres set up by private colleges,” educationists cautioned.