Engineering cut-off to drop by 1-10 marks

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Higher Education Department on Tuesday released the engineering rank list for 2026 admissions, with educationists predicting a drop of one to 10 marks in cut-off scores compared to last year due to fewer students securing centum marks in core subjects.

Higher Education Minister P Viswanathan on Wednesday released the rank list and the counselling schedule.

Students who secured top 3 ranks are S Akshitha of Dharmapuri, followed by A Rohith Balan of Tirupur and A Vengada Krishnan of Namakkal respectively. Under the 7.5% reservation for government school students, ST Devadharshini of Salem secured the first rank, K Pugazhesh of Tiruchy stood second, and R Janarthanan of Tiruvannamalai secured the third rank.

The number of students scoring a perfect cut-off of 200 fell sharply from 141 last year to 52 this year. Likewise, the number of students with a 199 cut-off declined from 717 to 212, while those scoring 198 dropped from 2,511 to 949.

Educationist R Ashwin told DT Next that the decline in cut-off scores was primarily due to fewer students obtaining centum marks in physics, chemistry and mathematics this year. Another educationist, Jayaprakash Gandhi, advised students to choose engineering colleges after careful evaluation and proper guidance instead of focusing solely on ranks.

This year, over 2.45 lakh students had applied and paid the application fee for admissions. The rank list of 2.36 lakh candidates was released on Wednesday. Tamil Nadu has more than 2.65 lakh engineering seats across 484 engineering colleges, with 19,657 additional seats added this year.

“Candidates whose names do not appear in the rank list can approach the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) Facilitation Centres in their respective districts to rectify discrepancies until July 6,” said Minister Viswanathan, who also warned engineering colleges against collecting capitation fees or donations from students.

“Strict action will be taken against institutions found violating the rules,” he added. “During the previous regime, colleges were assigned targets for seats to be allotted through the office of the Higher Education Minister, leading to irregularities. Such practices will not continue under the present government. Everything is conducted in a transparent manner.”

Meanwhile, the department also announced that counselling for the 2026-27 academic year will begin on July 13, with general counselling scheduled on July 20.

According to the schedule, counselling for candidates under the 7.5%, disabled candidates, children of ex-servicemen and sports quota applicants will be held on July 13 and 14. Counselling for government school students under the 7.5% horizontal reservation in the general category will be conducted from July 15-18. General counselling for all other candidates will begin on July 20 and continue till August 30.

Counselling authorities cautioned students and parents against middlemen claiming they could secure engineering seats in exchange for money, stating that all eligible applicants would be allotted seats through the counselling process.