Not got admission in first choice of college? You can now reapply

From this academic year on, engineering aspirants in state are likely to find it easier to secure admission in their most preferred college.

The Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), which supervises admission in engineering colleges, has changed the rules, giving aspirants more freedom to choose their college and branch.

DTE conducts a centralised admission process (CAP) for more than 1.5 lakh seats in over 360 colleges. The CAP mandates that each student list over 100 colleges in the admission form. Till 2013-14, if a student was allotted a seat in any of the first three colleges in his/her list, it was mandatory for him/her to confirm the admission, after which s/he would be out of the CAP rounds.

From this year, students will have to confirm their admission only if they get a seat in a college which is their first choice, otherwise, they will still be eligible for the second round of admissions. Admission this year will be based on JEE (Main) score and Std XII marks (physics, chemistry and maths), both having 50% weightage.

This means aspirants will get a betterment option which wasn't available to them till last year.

A highly-placed official in DTE told dna, "In the earlier process, if students got a seat in any of their three top options in the first round of admissions, they were forced to confirm the seat. It meant even if seats were vacant in the next round in a college of their first choice, they were unable to apply. This led to the vacant seats being opened up for students with lesser scores in the second round."

DTE's admission guidelines state, "The process is designed to prevent loss of academics and to make the CAP rounds meaningful and effective... also on the basis of facts and figures available with the directorate on seats remaining vacant at the end of each round... The rounds are so designed with the purpose that maximum vacant seats are filled in and the candidate gets his desired choice."

The application process for admission will start as soon as the HSC results are out. However, the allotments will begin only after the All India Council for Technical Education gives approvals to the new institutes and fresh intakes at existing colleges. These may come by June 10.

While students are happy about the additional option given to them, principals are wary of the long-drawn process.

"DTE should be trying to fill in as many seats in each round. With this option, students will always want to wait till the second round and they will not confirm their admissions," said a principal.

Last year, several meritorious students were left without seats after the three rounds. Several top colleges also had a lot of seats vacant after the first two rounds as students withdrew their admissions after getting admission in the IITs or NITs.

Keep yourself up to date
The DTE website http://www.dtemaharashtra.gov.in/fe2014 is one of the most up-to-date sites and gives all the information, including start of registration and CAP rounds
Helpline Nos: (022) 22626853 or 22626854 or 30233444/5/6

Eligibility Criteria
The students must have passed higher secondary exam from Maharashtra or any other Indian board, secured at least 50% marks in physics, chemistry and maths (45% for the reserved category and person/s with disability from within the state) and obtained All India rank in JEE (Main) Paper 1 given by the CBSE.

For poor students
Sons and daughters of people having annual income of less than Rs4.5 lakh from all sources are eligible to seek admission under poor quota scheme. Under this scheme, 5% seats of all courses at each college are available for the poor. Admission under this scheme is conducted by DTE and through CAP only. The students admitted as per this scheme will get a waiver in tuition fee only