The first 10 candidates who had topped the general merit list for medical seats chose the Madras Medical College on Tuesday. Counselling for the general category candidates under single window system began with Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar distributing the allotment order to the top 10 rankers.
Aadithya Mahesh M.V., who had stood third in Kerala State Board with 1194 marks and Gnanavel E.J., who had scored 986/1000 from the Andhra Pradesh State Board, were among the three toppers with a cut off of 200 marks this year.
Aadithya’s father K. Manikandan is a stringer attached to Deepika Daily and works in Thiruvananthapuram. Basically from Vilavancode in Kanniyakumari district, he shifted to Thiruvananthapuram for her education. She took the National Eligibility and Entrance Test but did not attempt the Kerala State’s common medical entrance test.
“For every wrong answer there is negative marking apart from losing the marks for the question,” she explained.
Gnanavel did not consider NEET as he hailed from Tamil Nadu. His father E. Jagadeesan works in a medical shop in Podhatturpettai around 23 km from Tiruttani. Gnanavel, who had scored 150/150 marks each in Botany, Zoology, Chemistry and 198/200 in Sanskrit, had scored 188/200 in English. He wants to become a neurologist.
Topper V. Vignesh, son of a State transport bus conductor R. Vadivelu, is the first generation graduate in his family. He wants to become a nephrologist as “there are a lot of people with kidney diseases and the speciality is different from cardiology or neurology.”
State toppers Aarthi V. and K.H. Jeshwanth, who had lost the top slots in the merit list were not too perturbed as both were admitted to MMC.
“I lost because I am younger than them,” said Jeshwanth, who was ranked 17. Aarthi was ranked 10, also due to the same factor.
Varshini S, of SVS Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Samayapuram in Tiruchi, who had given up her seat to her classmate N. Janani under the ex-servicemen category, was admitted to MMC.
Dr. Vijaya Baskar said the State government had added 710 seats in the last five years and this year with the ESIC Coimbatore being given permission to admit students it had added 100 more seats.
As many as 3,694 candidates including, 159 candidates under special category had been invited for the first phase of counselling.
The ranks of at least 696 candidates in the general list had to be adjusted following revaluation and retotalling, said selection secretary G. Selvarajan.
On Tuesday, there was a change in the ranks of four candidates who attended counselling, he said.
On the first day all candidates had chosen seats only in government medical colleges. At the end of counselling with 730 seats having been allotted in various categories, there were no vacancies in the OC category but seats were available in ESIC Medical College, K.K. Nagar and the government dental college in that category.
First 10 candidates who had topped the general merit list chose the Madras Medical College
