| Thursday, June 26, 2008
Anna University releases rank list of engineering seats
Competition will be tougher than ever this year
- Top nine students have tied with a cut-off
of 200
- Ranked using arbitrary process of ascending
age order
Chennai: Competition for engineering seats in the State will
be tougher than ever this year. On Wednesday, Anna University
released the rank list of the 1.23 lakh students competing for
69,731 seats in government colleges and the government quota
of self-financing colleges.
The top nine students in the rank list have all tied with a
cut-off of 200, scoring centum in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry,
as well as their optional subjects. Therefore, they were ranked
using an arbitrary process of ascending age order, with Rekhna
Rajendran of Salem district taking first place.
This system means that although Chennai student Asha Ganesan
was the State topper in the higher secondary examinations, she
is ranked at number seven in the counselling process, since
she is younger than many of her peers. “As soon as she
saw the ranking, she was a little upset, even though she understands
the process,” says her father. “We were happy getting
her into UKG at age four, but may be she is paying the price
now.”.
Asha, who plans to choose the Electronics and Communication
Engineering stream at Anna University when general counselling
begins on July 11, points out that the system is even tougher
on other students.
“I feel that it is not good to use age. For my mark, it
may be okay, but I feel sorry for students with lower marks,
whose ranking and seat choice will get decided by their date
of birth,” she says.
Age now plays a critical role in a situation where every cut-off
mark sees a tie between 200 and 300 students, according to initial
analysis of the marks.
If their individual subject marks are also identical, students’
date of birth could make the difference between success and
failure in getting the seat of their choice. In 54 cases, tied
students even shared a birthday, so admission authorities had
to resort to using their random numbers to break the tie. Last
year, the random number was used less than five times, authorities
say.
C. Pallavi, who is the top Chennai student in the rank list,
placed at number six, points out that using age as a tie-breaker
is not new. However, other students feel the age factor should
be replaced by a random number system. “It’s not
our fault to be born older or younger,” says Chennai student
Harish Sriram, who was the state’s third ranked student
in the higher secondary examination, and comes within the top
50 in the counselling rank list.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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