Over 55,000 Tamil Nadu students secure better colleges in final TNEA round

The third and final round of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions counselling has delivered provisional allotments to 55,365 students through upward mobility, allowing them to move into preferred institutions or courses. The September 1 announcement brings total provisional allotments across all three TNEA 2026 rounds to 1,44,295.

Among those who secured upward movement in the final round, 2,450 students belong to the 7.5% horizontal reservation category meant for government school students. Students provisionally allotted through this mode must report to their respective colleges on or before September 10, according to TNEA authorities.

The facilitation centres that collected fees and certificates from these students during counselling will forward the documents directly to the allotted colleges, the authorities stated in a press release.

Aggregate allotment figures

Of the 1,44,295 total provisional allotments issued this year, general category students account for 1,29,364 seats while 14,931 students secured admission under the government school reservation. The counselling process aims to fill a total of 1.8 lakh engineering seats.

Last year's TNEA counselling had resulted in 1,45,481 provisional allotments at the conclusion of three rounds, with 14,143 students from the special reservation category securing seats. In the 2025 third round alone, 52,168 provisional allotments were distributed, including 2,075 for government school category candidates.

The upward mobility mechanism allows students who initially accepted a lower-preference allotment to move into colleges or branches that better match their rank and choice list, as vacancies emerge from students who withdraw or fail to confirm their admission in earlier rounds.

Source: The Hindu