Getting ahead with CAP

Getting ahead with CAP

The online Centralised Allotment Process could prove tricky to aspirants of engineering and medical courses. G. MAHADEVAN cautions them about the pitfalls that they may come across while using the online process.

Go online: The Commissioner of Entrance Examinations will notify the list of centres where candidates can participate in CAP.


Amid continuing uncertainty about the fee and the number of seats for engineering, medical and allied courses in the State, the only constant seems to be the Centralised Allotment Process (CAP).

This year too, the Commissioner for Entrance Examination will use the software developed and maintained by the National Informatics Centre for CAP. Though the software has matured over the past two years, the online process still poses some challenges to aspirants. In some aspects of CAP, students repeatedly go wrong.

In about two weeks, the Commissioner will publish the category lists of candidates eligible for reservation. After June 12, the rank list for the architecture course will be published. By the fourth week of June, the revised category list will be published. During this period, the Commissioner will start dispatching the data sheet containing a candidate’s rank, his or her roll number and key number. The key number will be printed on a detachable portion of the sheet.

Once the category lists are out, candidates can assess their position in the rank list and by using the “last rank admitted” details for 2007, can also roughly gauge the likelihood of their getting admission to desired courses. It will be a good idea to note down the roll number, the application number and the key number on a card and keep it safe. However, candidates will be well advised not to lose the data sheet.

This is the time when candidates should gather information about colleges in which they plan to study and about the courses they wish to do. Once this is done, a candidate should sit down to fix the course and college priority.

The registration of options will begin once the Commissioner notifies CAP and specifies the window within which it should be done. There will be a designated web site for the registration. Each candidate will have a home page on this site. This page can be accessed only by keying in the roll number, the key number and the application number. An alphanumeric password of up to 15 characters has to be compulsorily set. It is vital for candidates not to lose their password. Once a candidate has reached his home page, he or she can mark preferences for courses and colleges.

Remember password

Last year, there were many instances of candidates frantically ringing up the office of the Commissioner saying they had lost or forgotten their passwords. A candidate can retrieve the password either from the Commissioner’s office at Thiruvananthapuram or at the Information Guidance and Option Facilitation Centre in each district on proving his or her identity.

The options can be registered from any computer that has a Net connection. The Commissioner will notify the list of centres where candidates can participate in CAP.

It is while marking preferences for courses and colleges that most candidates make mistakes.

Those familiar with the codes of the courses and colleges often overlook the slightest of differences in the codes while marking preferences. As a result, they may get allotted to a course or college that they never wished to study in.

A candidate who has done his homework would have a priority list of courses and colleges with the codes checked and confirmed. There is no limit to the changes a candidate can make in the priority list when the registration window is open.

Though candidates can register hundreds of course and college options, they should never mark preference for a course or college that they do not desire. Once a preference is marked against a course and college, there is every possibility of getting allotted to it. After marking each preference, the home page should be saved and a printout taken. Also, compulsorily log out is required each time.

A candidate marks his preferences using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3 …). Do not enter separate priority lists for engineering and medical courses. In other words, a candidate can have as his first priority the electrical engineering course, second priority, the BDS programme and third, the MBBS course.

If a candidate wishes to remove a particular option from that list, all he or she has to do is to remove the given preference number, type zero in its place and update the list.

Candidates should never wait till the last minute for registering the options as that would rob them of the benefits of the trial allotments that the Commissioner makes.

After each trial allotment, the candidate can revise the option list. At a specified time and date, the web site will be frozen and no further revisions can be made.

Once the first allotment is done, the time and date for the payment of fee will be announced. At the time of the admission, the candidate will have to produce the documents listed in the prospectus (pages 37-38). Candidates should note that no eligibility or equivalency certificate is needed for the ICSE, the CBSE, the VHSE and the higher secondary courses. However, a candidate who has studied under an examination Board of another State (say, Gujarat or Rajasthan) should get such a certificate from any university in Kerala. If after the first allotment, a candidate is satisfied with the course and college he has received, he should compulsorily cancel his “higher order option” list. Otherwise, the CAP software will assume that the candidate wishes to be considered for re-allotment and will do so accordingly.

(Note: The CAP procedure described in the article was sourced from the office of the Commissioner at the time of the preparation of the article. There may be slight changes in the CAP procedure as per the discretion of the CEE.)