According to the merit list, a total of about 1.10 lakh candidates are eligible to participate in the online counselling, which will be held in five rounds.

As per TNEA records, only about 39,000 out of the 54,000 candidates deemed eligible have participated in the counselling process till date.

In the first round, 7,303 students participated in the online counselling as against 10,734 eligible candidates, which is about 32 per cent less. Likewise, 13,288 took part in the second round as against 18,513 eligible candidates, which is about 30 per cent less. 18,534 candidates out of the total 25,710 eligible ones took part in the third round of counselling, which is about 28 per cent less.

Anna University sources said the trend is likely to continue in round four, which is under way. An Anna University staff said, “If this 30 per cent trend of candidates skipping continues till the last round of counselling, only between 70,000 and 75,000 candidates are expected to take up engineering courses,” which then is expected to lead to a huge number of seats going vacant.

A senior professor from the University said most of the students, who appeared for online counselling this year, are interested to join either Computer Science or Electronics and Communications.

Meanwhile, all the remaining eligible candidates will be attending the final round of counselling from August 14 and the tentative allotment for the last batch of candidates will be announced on August 24.