chennai the number of private selffinancing engineering colleges in tamil nadu may have increased from 490 to 525 but the list of university rank holders released by anna university shows that the top few institutions have most students scoring top ranks velammal engineering college continues to be on the top with 182 candidates securing university ranks last year too the college topped the list of engineering institutions in chennai with 92 of its students securing university ranks velammal engineering college principal r s kumar attributed the consistent performance to good processes the students are hard working and the faculty members know what they are doing he said panimalar engineering college has trumped sister institution st josephs college of engineering to secure the second spot on the list of institutions with the highest rank holders st josephs comes third followed by sri sairam engineering college which has retained the fourth position ssn college of engineering has outdone rmk college of engineering by a small margin with 106 of its students securing ranks compared to 101 in rmk saiprakash leo muthu ceo of sri sairam group of institutions said the college has been able to retain its place among the top five colleges because of the students the cream of students chooses to study in our college he said the college follows a mentoring system in which one faculty member is put in charge of 18 students a review of the students performance is done at the end of every year the college has also got university ranks in all eight departments for the fourth consecutive year when the student scores high marks placements happen automatically muthu said four of the five colleges on the list are among the top 10 colleges in the region with the highest pass percentage an analysis of the academic performance of first year students in the 201011 batch in selffinancing colleges affiliated to anna university of technology shows that velammal sri sairam ssn and rmk have been able to secure a pass rate of more than 80 educational consultant d nedunchezhiyan of technocrat indiacollegefinderscom said that only if anna university puts out the list of rank holders in engineering colleges in other parts of the state will students get a true picture of which colleges have good ranking colleges are wooing students with top marks in the class 12 board exams with scholarships and free seats when a college gets good students a little training and focus will yield good results he said