Chennai: The first round of engineering admissions counselling for colleges under Anna University has concluded, with reports indicating that 146 participating colleges did not secure even a single student in this round.
The counselling for the current academic year began on July 13. While a large set of colleges saw no intake, more than 200 colleges—including six government engineering colleges—recorded admissions only in single digits across their departments.
At the same time, admissions were relatively stronger in a limited number of institutions: 23 colleges reportedly filled up to 60% of seats, and 32 colleges up to 40%.
Educationist Jayaprakash Gandhi said students showed strong preference for institutions such as CEG, MIT, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, PSG and ACTech. He added that BE Computer Science and Engineering and Electronics and Communication Engineering emerged as the top choices in the first round.
He noted that interest declined in branches such as Civil, Aeronautical, Chemical, Biotechnology, Ceramic, Petroleum, Textile, Fashion and Leather-related engineering, with 20 programmes recording zero admissions. Among top scorers, only 38 of 52 students with a 200/200 cut-off secured seats in Round 1, and 1,506 of 2,151 students with a 195/200 cut-off got seats, as others leaned towards deemed universities or medicine. He estimated that around 40,000 BE/BTech seats could remain vacant after all three rounds.
