Chennai: The Directorate of Technical Education has issued detailed guidelines for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) 2026, outlining the selection process, sports quota norms, reservation policy, and online counselling procedures.

Merit-Based Selection and Normalisation
Admissions under the general category will be based on marks secured in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, scaled to a total of 200 (Maths: 100, Physics: 50, Chemistry: 50).

To ensure uniformity across different education boards, a normalisation process will be applied. However, such normalised marks will not be considered for determining minimum eligibility.

In case of a tie, ranking will be decided based on:
Mathematics marks
Physics marks
Optional subject marks
Total marks in Class XII
Date of birth (senior candidate preferred)
Random number

Sports Quota: Performance-Based Ranking
Admissions under the eminent sports persons quota will be based exclusively on sports achievements.

Only the highest achievement per academic year will be considered
Achievements from the last four academic years (2022-2026) will be taken into account
A minimum of 5 marks is required for inclusion in the rank list

Marks are awarded based on level of participation:
International: up to 1000 marks
National: up to 190 marks
State: up to 95 marks
District: up to 45 marks

Only competitions conducted by recognised sports bodies will be considered. Private or invitational tournaments, school zonal events, and CBSE cluster competitions are excluded.

Reservation Policy
Admissions will follow the Tamil Nadu Government's reservation structure:
Open Competition (OC): 31%
Backward Class (BC): 26.5%
Backward Class Muslim (BCM): 3.5%
Most Backward Class / Denotified Communities (MBC/DNC): 20%
Scheduled Caste (SC): 15%
Scheduled Caste Arunthathiyars (SCA): 3%
Scheduled Tribes (ST): 1%

Additionally, 7.5% of seats are reserved for students who studied in government schools from Classes 6 to 12.