Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE) has written to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), seeking an extension of the engineering admissions and counselling schedule till September for the 2026-27 academic year, official sources said.

Engineering admissions to colleges affiliated with Anna University are currently under way. Counselling for candidates under special categories has been completed, while counselling for candidates under the general category and the 7.5 per cent horizontal reservation for government school students has commenced.

The counselling process is being held in three rounds, with the first phase scheduled to continue till August 30. Subsequent rounds, including supplementary counselling and counselling for candidates under the Scheduled Caste Arunthathiyar (SCA) category migrating to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, will be announced later.

However, as per the AICTE academic calendar, admissions to the first year of engineering programmes are to be completed by August 14.

In view of the mismatch between the AICTE deadline and the ongoing counselling schedule, the Directorate of Technical Education has sought permission from the AICTE to continue admissions till September, sources said.

Meanwhile, in a circular to higher educational institutions across the country, AICTE Member Secretary Shyama Rath said many CBSE Class 12 students had applied for post-result processes, including verification of marks, obtaining photocopies of answer scripts and re-evaluation.

Since the results of these processes are likely to be declared only after the ongoing admission process, institutions have been advised to provide students additional time to submit their final CBSE mark sheets and allow them to participate in admissions.

The AICTE said eligible students should not be deprived of higher education opportunities because of delays in the CBSE post-result procedures.