More often than not, I usually ignore such instances of gross misreporting, but this time round, IndiaToday has pulled a shocker. I mean holy cow! Who is conducting these surveys and what are they based on? They must have been on crack when they came up with something like this.
Here's what I think of the various placeholders.
VIT Vellore's admission process is shady. NIT Warangal is starving for funds. Their ELX students come to Hyderabad to buy motors and micro-controllers. NIT Trichy's IT departments (CS, EE, ELX, IT) are just ok. Surely, they don't deserve the 12th spot. DCE's curriculum is ancient and despite their mechanical engineering department being the best in Asia (can anyone confirm this?) , it needs a lot of ramping up, for it to figure in the top 15. Jadavpur university is actually good - perhaps better than VIT and NITW. Freshers at BITS, Ranchi are made to do the 'jugnu'. Talk about civilized gentry! RVCE Bangalore, does not figure in the top 25, though MS Ramaiah, which is crappier than RVCE, gets the 21st spot. Shockingly, BITS Pilani does not even get a mention. Would the survey team like to explain this universe-annihilating anomaly?
Frankly, the IITs are in a league of their own. Then, comes this pool of fairly good engineering colleges - IIITH, IIITA, NIT-T, BITS Pilani and Anna University - colleges that have good faculty and are seeing an influx of brilliant students because of their placements or grad school admits. These colleges are almost at par - at little plus and minus, here and there, does not matter much. The only caveat is that most of them are self-financed deemed universities, and hence a tad costly. The next bunch of engineering colleges is - NITW, NIT Calicut, NIT Rourkela, NIT Allahabad, NSIT Delhi, DAIICT and PEC Chandigarh. Again, I would place them on an even keel.
I do not distinguish between these two groups of T-schools. If you're a prospective engineering student in India, don't take it to mean pool #1 > pool #2. Believe me, all these are genuinely good colleges - all achieve 100% placement and their students get pretty decent grad admits. If you prefer less red-tape, exposure to research and tough competition, choose pool #1. As an engineering grad (or about to be grad!), my sincere advice to you, would be, to not consider such vanity magazines' rankings. Talk to people who have already gone through the process. Talk to people who are working in the industry or slogging in grad school.
I have enough experience when it comes to manager-speak [:D] but would anyone care to explain what an institute's perceptual rank is?
More reviews are here and here [RmShark].
[Edited In - 00:46 05/25/08] Most of the stuff is _not_ from the horse's mouth. Rather, it's from the alumni of various colleges.
Khuda Hafiz,
Sultan of Samarkand.
Footnote- Posting for the last time from the IIIT-H network and it's about selecting an engineering college. I can now safely say that I've come a full circle!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
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46 comments:
Can't say much about the reasons for other things but BITS Pilani is not there because it stopped participating in India Today rankings few years back!!
btw lol at footnote!!
@lifeizlikethat
I hope there are no other reasons. Btw, do you think IIIT-H officially provides details to these survey folks? It's mostly from our website and hearsay.
I kind of disagree with you when you say IIT's are a class apart from IIIT-H. I have been to a few IIT's recently and I would *NOT* swap CS in those places with CS in IIIT. There are certain advantages that come with being in an IIT. But from a pure academics point view there is nothing in a IIT that is missing here. Yes there are more lawns in a IIT and the buildings look cool and they have a huge campus. But this is about academic pursuits. I can not see a situation where as a computer science student you are at a significant disadvantage because you are at IIIT.
What logic (math) is used in the overall score?
I see IIT-K and IIT-M ranked above IIT-D in all the categories except factual rank even then IIT-D tops the list. how come??
BTW what is the difference between Factual and overall?
Blah man ... surveys suck big time ! ... I think they use the ancient technique of rock pepper scissor !!
Have a nice life beyond IIIT !
who said to u nit warangal is starving of funds...know facts and write...dare to compare nitw with jadavpur university... ru a crack to compare nitw with jadavpur university..
These India Today rankings bugged me no end for years and I would write about them the way you did as I felt it misleads students. But I should thank them as it egged me on to bring out the JAM Engineering Admissions handbook which rates 500 colleges across India. (www.jammag.com/enggbook/) If you'd like to review the book on your blog I'd be happy to send across a copy! Drop me a mail at rashmi_b at yahoo.com
@ShArK
I speak only from an academic perspective. I don't really care about the lawns and fountains, if I get a decent enough campus to study in. There are a bunch of major plus points that the IITs have-
(1) International exposure-Someone who has gone through the process of apping for MS/PhD, should know how great a brand, IIT is!
(2) Courses-You could major in CS and choose courses from Mech and Aero. Now, that's really diverse!
(3) Infrastructure-You just cannot compare any college in India with the IITs when it comes to infra. The thousand million rupee grant does not go in anyone's pockets!
I think IIITH lacks a full-fledged math department. Research centers and all are OK but you need to strengthen your basics first. After all, CS is applied math. Apart from that, as someone has rightly pointed out, the insti does not market itself well. Ergo, attracts lesser talent than say, the IITs.
@Anonymous-
Not a clue!
@skp-
Hey, you wanna come over sometime and play rock, paper and scissors? You can wager your grafix card :P
@lingam-
This is not first hand information. All I know is that my friend's brother who studies at NITW came to Hyderabad for circuit boards etc. You look like an engineering undergrad. Go figure yourself! All I've said is, 'JU is actually good, and _perhaps_ better than NITW'. It is just my speculation! You can go ask any IIT prof. about their MTech students who did their UG at JU. And it's my blog, I can do/write/dare whatever I want.
@Rashmi
Email's on its way. Keep dropping by.
dude! you are again talking about IIT's brand name. It has a brand name. But again, what does it have to do with your producivity while you are in IIIT? IIIT might not be the greatest spring-board for an MS abroad but people CAN make it to the top universities as has been shown this year.Almost every top university apart from MIT and Berkely was cracked by this year. Looks like you are bitter aout something :P
@ShArK
I have no regrets on coming to IIIT-H. Heck, I got admits from decent universities and got a job at a place which hires only from the IITs and IIIT-H! All credit to the institution.
When I was apping, I somehow felt that even if my profile (Recos+SOP+GPA+Pubs) were significantly better than most of the applicants from the IITs, they had a better chance of getting through. Irony/injustice? It's your call.
I agree with you on the brand name thingy. We still have a long way to go before we start cracking the top univs consistently. An MIT here and a Berkely there is not good enuf.
Nicely done!
First, who cares about a survey .. especially India Today's .. that really doesn't mean anything.
And yep second is that i hate this brand thing.
btw .. Nicely written post!
Public is wondering as to why BITS Pilani does not figure in the India's Best Colleges Survey reported in the recent issue of India Today magazine.
For the academic year 2004-2005 BITS Pilani admissions were based on the normalized percentage of marks and when this fact was known to everyone across the length and breadth of India, the Magazine India Today went about ranking the best colleges stating that BITS Pilani admissions were based on an entrance examination. One can easily conclude as to whose credibility is at stake in this episode.
In the case of News, one should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation. Considering that the principles of good journalism are directed toward bringing the highest quality of news reporting to the public, thus fulfilling the mission of timely distribution of information in service of public interest, it must be made known that BITS Pilani stopped participating in the India Today ranking of India's best colleges for the years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
http://www.pr-inside.com/bits-pilani-towering-above-the-rest-r607924.htm
@anonymous
Woah! Is this an official statement from BITS Pilani's PR Cell?
BITS Pilani is one among the top ranking universities in INdia Yesterday, India Today and India Tomorrow also. Imagine an Olympics boycotted by USA, Japan, UK etc and what is there to speak about the medal winners in such an Olympics?
@anonymous
If countries such as Japan, UK, USA boycott the Olympics, it does not mean that the medal winners do not deserve a prize, neither does it mean that athletes from Japan, UK or USA are better than the rest.
Personally, I consider BITS Pilani to be among the top 15 universities. So, there!
Dude, don't spin arbit thoughts in blogs. u heard a certain friend's bro coming for circuit boards and you decipher that NITW is starving and must be inferior to jadavapur...u must be smoking pot to derive conclusions basing on nothing, zilch...what the heck happened to ur logic, if u are a science student to start with..I am from NITW, pursuing PhD from a top-5 US school in EE, and I see no Jadavpur student out here. Be careful when you spin some BS out here.
And BTW, talking about your current school, did u know that govindarajulu was from NITW, that guy who currently runs ur VLSI design center is a power system with AI applications guy, who switched to VLSI out of nowhere? Inspite of all the excellent PhD teachers out there, how many are IEEE fellows and how frequently do they publish outside Andhra, forget India? Know about ur school more, before u can start to derive conclusions in air about other schools.
@US-PhD student above
All right. I didn't want to write this here but the guy actually told me that their lab does not have enough components and getting it through the official channel would have taken some time. Hence, he had to rush to Hyderabad to get them. And as far as NITW is concerned, I've heard so many of your students rant and whine about your college.
Before writing that comment, did you talk to any IIT prof? All I've said is that JU churns out decent grads and _might_ be comparable to NITW.
Yes, I know Prof. Govindrajulu was the dean at NITW. That's why most your folks come over to our place in summers for projects. Don't you have good faculty at NITW? The guy who runs our VLSI center publishes >50 papers every year in international journals and conferences. Last year, he led a team which won the Intel India Students Research Contest. Check out this DBLP page, if you want concrete proof-
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/t/Thapliyal:Himanshu.html
This guy worked at the VLSI lab for 2 years and published ~20 papers in international journals/conf. There are several such students in the lab. Frankly, I wouldn't know how many of those publications are in A+ conferences, but none of them are in state-level conferences.
Oh, and one more thing. IIIT is not so well known for its research in VLSI.
Leave a link to your webpage, would you? Let us all know how great you are!
@US-PhD student above
The above mentioned person did his bachelors from an almost unheard of place. He is now a PhD student at UCF - not a top-5 university but a decent one at that.
>50 papers every year in international journals and conferences
Wow, can you please show us a link for your prof. with greater than 50 publications per year ! Oh, I forgot the fact that you hardly follow logic, so u obviously donnow how to count.
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/s/Srinivas:M=_B=.html
And BTW, the numbers don't count for a dime. Conferences like VLSI Design India, ICCD and ISCAS are third rate dying conferences, ask any prof of repute in VLSI, and they will tell you. And BTW, I have nothing against Himanshu or any other student at IIIT, just wanted to call your baseless deductions.
And holly crap, u are a good googler, but alas, I am not Kartik. But nice try though.
@US-PhD student above
Well, I may be wrong on that statistic. The research center does not list its publications. It was just an estimate [no of students * average number of pubs over the years]. The numbers don't count for a dime? Well, how many does NITW's EE department publish, anyway?
As stated already, I wouldn't know how good those conferences are. I'm not from an ELX background.
And don't get paranoid. I didn't google for you, neither do I care. The IP logger embedded in my blog can give away your university's IP and hence your identity. But, that's too much work. I need to work on my logical faculty, don't I?
BTW, just to sample a few of the NITW alumni: check a few names,h
Srinidhi Varadarajan,
Heard of the fastest academic supercomputer
Vijay R. Konda
http://web.mit.edu/jnt/www/after.html
Sultan, You can traceroute me or do anything, but it doesn't matter and I know you have better things to do :) But anyway, I have good respect for IIIT, and was even thinking of trying for a part-time faculty position out there after graduation. All I was saying was that many of these colleges have good history of producing good students, and that's what makes them good schools. IIIT will get there some day, maybe bcoz of ambitious and meritorious students like you. But we all need to respect each other.
@Anonymous
A clarification. I hold NITW in high regard. If you would bother to go through the post again, you would notice that I haven't distinguished much between your college and my own. Of course, I like a few things about IIIT-H and that's why I chose this place over NITW 4 years earlier.
My only opinion of NITW is through some of its alumni who seemed disgruntled by the college. No doubt NITW has a glorious past, but going by the words of your alumni, I kinda doubt the state of affairs there.
BTW, did you get a chance to visit the School of theatre, film and television? It's pretty famous :D
@ anon US-Top5-PhD-Dude
Electronics at IIIT is very new. Only the second batch has graduated this year! So comparing ece in IIIT to other places is a tad premature right now. But I do think ECE is pretty ok here. IIIT's core competence is computer science and in CS we could open a can of whopass on anybody..if you know what I mean :)
I went to NITW for my AIEEE counselling. It's a decent place with a lot of history. And as you would know it takes time for a insitution ot be recognised world-wide. NITW willl be 50 next year. Thats a long time. considering IIIT will be 10 this year thats pretty good going!
and please...post with a real name and link. Nobody is gonna gobble you up!
This obsession with rankings r bullshit..........when u enter a decent college do u care about what other colleges can give u..........n if u do then rethink ur aims and goals in life coz u r living in ur past baby or anywhere u shouldn't be..........thats where we guys @ VNIT Nagpur r different. Look we gave u IIM A 's Director, Boeing VP Dinesh Keskar,....et al.......yet no one thinks of us in the rankings and we don't give a damn.
According to Aroon Purie Editor in Chief of India Today "Our rankings have become the benchmark for academic standards in India". For 2008, India Today issue dated June 2, 2008 carries the India's Best Colleges An Exclusive Survey. Page 88 of this esteemed magazine says IIT Chennai has 200 seats and Page 90 says IIT Mumbai has 312 seats. Year 2007 IIT Chennai had 540 seats and IIT Mumbai had 574 seats. This esteemed magazine did not have a clue to number of seats in various IITs and has gone about ranking them. Do you think it has any credibility? This is the type of guffa they did for BITS Pilani in year 2004 which has been undoubtedly one among the top ranking universities in India. Its time for India today to do Mouthshut.com about their rankings becoming benchmarks for academic standards in India.
I am a student of EEE, NIT Warangal.
@ Sultan
I am thoroughly dumbfounded after having read your pseudo-arbitration about the rating of colleges in India. Dude, who do u think you are. Some survey guy or some advocate or advertising agent of some crap. It gives me spasms in the brain to even realize the worth of this argument. In the very first place, utter childishness takes its worst form when someone says that a college is starving for funds coz one student goes to hyderabad to buy motors or microcontrollers. Take a break dude !! That means if u ever saw a person pooping u wud draw out a conclusion that his whole body is full of shit. ;). I can just say 'It's time to GROW UP !!'.
@ US Phd from NITW
Sir, I agree with ur stance but I don't feel that theres a need to clarify or explain things to people, about our college. Moreover, dont you think its completely inappropriate to even compare any NIT with any IIIT. And talking esp about the best of both categories, NIT W and IIIT H, they are two institutes of their own nature. One is a premier, full-fledged technology and science institute offering almost every type of degree in a wide range of departments. On the other hand, IIIT, as the name itself says, is an institute of Information Technology purely. Therefore, when we make any comparison, we must be clear that the two sides are of the same dimension. We can not compare a set with its subset. I hope that I have got my point across.
@SHaRk
To the person who talks about number of years these two colleges have been existing, dude, I agree IIIT might be doing something decent in ELX or IT. In fact it is totally indispensable for it to do that. If it can't even manage to sustain in its specialized fields, then it can very well rest in trash.
@ All of u
I am neither trying to flaunt my institute here nor trying to belittle IIIT. I am trying to get our heads straight in the discussion which has taken such a bad shape. To any reader it seems to be more like a war of egos than an effort to help someone decide colleges for admissions. My request to people is that its no big achievement for anyone to have proven ones point on this blog. If theres anything to learn is that we must not let absurdities take the place of logic. If this kind of mindset is carried forward, I am sure it will bring a bad name to both our respective colleges some day. After all its not the inanimate college building which make up its rating. Its we the students or alumni who decide the perception of others.
Dear Mr. Chhabra
I have not rated all the engineering college of the country in this post of mine. Neither do I have the expertise and statistics to do so. I have only grouped them - based only upon my perception and after talking to a lot of alumnus from most places. And since you have articulated your comment so well, I would implore you to read my last comment above this one.
Perhaps the comparison of NITW and Jadavpur University has hurt you more than the *perceived* state of affairs at your university.
I shall say no more!
Well i wanna add a little to my knowledge. First of all yeah this ranking of India today is all da more crapp!!! Last yr my collg IIIT-A waz at 8th rank... nd nw its nowhr.. Bt wt i wanna kno is dat whether there's much difference btw a IIIT nd a collg like DCE/NSIT.. coz as far as i kno.. the faculty at dce/nsit is a lot crap.. nd i can well say the faculty at my collg is quite better dan dat.. nd wht more to say.. the syllabus at dce/nsit has nt been revised since last 10yrs or so.. bt still the students r well placed in dce/nsit.. can say thr placements match to our placements.. so did i really lost sumthin goin to iiit-a from delhi(as in city life's too bad there...) coz whrever i wud have gone.. dce or iiit-a finally i wud have gotta a gud placement.. bt i credited iiit-a more for its gud faculty nd infrastructure..
wht say??
hahaha author must be from bits-pilani
any ways who the bloody hell told you that nit-w is lacking funds.
if bits is getting enough of funds, then why cant it improve the state of the hostels, life@bit's hostel is really a fucking mess. windows without doors, cupboards without shelves and bathrooms with yellow paste in them all the time.
just visit the hostel of any nit or any college in the top 20 list, you will really understand the chasm of an engg college.
and its really funny when u tell that nit-w students have to take a ride of 2hrs on national highway to hyd to get few electronic components that are not available in warangal, then what the hell about your place?? the fucking journey of 8hrs to delhi or to jaipur, that's the nearest city to pilani, right????
i agree to the fact that quality of academic input at bits is better than at nits, bvut dont mention the word "INFRASTRUCTURE" when telling abt bits, the hostels are really a mess, ppl at bits must surely agree to this fact
@sooraj
'hahaha'. You are so pwned Sooraj! Read the footnote of the post.
Dumbass!
I am a student of BIT, Ranchi and I would like to say that the blog writer has it wrong when he says that freshers are made to do "jugnu" in my college.
I can testify the fact that we have one of the best discipline that a tech school can ask for. Stray cases might be there, BUT, with a capital T....I would like to say that they are really one-off case. Of late, ragging has completely stopped. The college authorities take great pains in ensuring untoward incidents. I was a fresher last year, and ragging incidents were practically nonexistent and innocuous if at all.
hey. you hit the nail right on the head. India Today leads one nowhere, but sadly, i've seen people believe on it. i've come across students and parents alike taking these rankings for granted and making decisions which could really hurt them in the long run. m not blaming these people for swearing by these rankings, but what i want to point out is why cannot media houses take some responsibility when it comes to such a sensitive issue....i've posted my analysis at http://engineering-portal.blogspot.com
though, it certainly lacks the sharpness which i felt your post has in aplenty...good going :)
No one has any doubt that BITS Pilani is indeed one among the top ranking universities in India yesterday, India today as well as India tomorrow. If mags like India today have become rags then you know who picks them up.
@sultan
there is not an iota of doubt that the india today rankings despite being the most despicable of the lot.most rankings are the same way in any case, it does manage to draw attention from us likes.verbal eloquence wont pay off.its just wat such magazines intend.totally aware of the shortcomings in their facts. tch tch
Be proud of the Institution from where you study. If you want to live in the glory of your alma mater, then there is nothing great about it than getting admission in such institutions which derive huge funds from the government. You may be destined to add glory to your alma mater and that is why you are studying where you are presently. Remember that no body can change the latitude and longtitude of your institution but the altitude of your institution can be changed by how you perform in your college and in your career after graduation.
these rankings are totally fake and i dont think they do proper surveys for ranking the colleges.IIIT-H is ranked at 16th. IIIT-H com. science is one of the best of the country and i can say its more or less equal to IITs. the curriculum and the intense research work really makes it set apart from other colleges. and last year IIIT-Allahabad was ranked at 8th and this year at 23, how can the college undergo such a change in 1 yr. and considering the infrastructure, faculty, the curriculum and placements, its certainly better than DCE/NSIT or NIT-R or NIT-Calicut. and i dont know how NIT Rourkela and NIT Nagpur come in top 20. this is totally crap and the parameters calculated are not upto the mark.
Wooooooooooooooo
What a f*****g interesting debate.
Dudes and dudetes(or whateve)..NITW rocks. Don't worry 'bout the funds which we have, IF you want we can transfer some funds to your college too.
@ankul
before saying anything, u should compare opening and closing ranks of NSIT/DCE with IIIT-A in AIEEE. IIITA starts where COE/ECE branches of NSIT/DCE finishes off completely!!!! IIIT-A will take atleast 10 more years to comptete with NSIT/DCE in terms of placements/higher studies(topmost institutes IIM,FMS,XLRI,ISB selections, MIT,STANFORD etc.)/AIEEE OR/CR...
but yes I complete agree with you that ancient curriculum is (only) a matter of concern with NSIT/DCE. but as a engineer I would recommend to have such an old (engineering foccussed) curriculum rather than having MCA type syllabus with JAVA/ORACLE/DBMS/languages which IIITA does have. No offenced to anybody or any college but just wanted to make your facts right.
Hi,
I'm a mechanical engineer (BE) from Iran, going to India in order to study PG IT.
My first option is MSIT Programme, in IIIT-H or wherever possible.
I asked many friends of mine whom study in India about the ranking of
IIIT, without any result.
I just got confused.
I kindly ask you to let me know:
1- Can I take enterance exam as an iranian student?
2- What is your suggestion about qualty of these universities which
expose MSIT Programme such as IIIT-H, JNTU-H, Osmania, ...?
More over I will appreciate you if you can give me any furthur helpful
information via my email (pezhman.alborz@yahoo.com).
Best Regards.
I should have chanced upon this blog earlier. Nice post. The rankings are utter bullshit. NSIT is far better than DCE. Both the IIITs are far better than every other college ranked below 10.
As for the anonymous post above:
"IIIT-A will take atleast 10 more years to comptete with NSIT/DCE in terms of placements/higher studies(topmost institutes IIM,FMS,XLRI,ISB selections, MIT,STANFORD etc.)"
Ahem. I must mention that out of the 18 Indians who were admitted to Stanford's CS department as graduate students in 2007, 4 were from IIITA (one of them being me). AFAIK, there wasn't a single person from NSIT or DCE. There are also quite a few IIITA'ians at the IIMs etc, and in places like CMU, Cornell, UT-Austin etc etc. One must consider these statistics in light of the fact that only a few batches have passed out of IIITA.
For the uninformed, IIITA also has a very active foreign research internship program. http://vpai.epfl.ch/page72668-en.html is not the least of it. Frankly, I would choose IIITA over NSIT, DCE and even IT-BHU.
No "offenced" taken anonymous dude. I "just wanted to make your facts right". ;-)
Hi Samir,
Congrats for getting into Standford. No offences but let me support my aruguments.
1. Just because "you" think that IIIT A is rated above NSIT does not make this point valid. Again I am saying IIIT A opening rank in AIEEE starts where NSIT/DCE COE/ECE/IT are completely finished.
Point to be noted here is that only outsiders (non-delhi) apply through AIEEE in NSIT/DCE, still NSIT/DCE are preffered
2. You may not agree but its my perception that getting into Stanford is any time easier that cracking IIM A. As you have mentioned about IIM selections, let me write some known facts :-) every year from NSIT 45-50 ppl get into IIM (45-50 only into IIM), IIM C, IIM L, FMS as far as I know has maximum admits from NSIT in last 7-8 years, (though IIT Delhi gives tough competition :-)). Similarly 20 ppl at an average get into IIM from DCE too every year (including freshers n work -ex guys obviously)
3. My perception : Getting into Standford may be a prestige issue but geting into IIMs are still preferred by any indian IT male :-) and tougher too.
4. Placements : NSIT is known for it always. I assume you will also agree.
So I may only leave NSIT, if I am getting into any IIT, BITS computers(depends. One more point with which again you may not agree is that being in Delhi, NSIT/DCE provides a good competitive ambience/good exposure/ extra-currics blah-2 that these 2 IIIITs (hyd/allahbad)...
I request you to please read my post in good spirit..
hey Samir (Stanford)
This is regarding your words about ppl from IIITA getting into IIMs. I am just favouring my alma mater NSIT...no offences to any other college...
see link below:
http://nsitlounge.in/bb/index.php?showtopic=7928&st=30
more than 35 freshers from NSIT got calls from IIM through CAT-08, this year....
Moreover 2 students from NSIT got 100 %le in CAT - 08, names are:
1 Debanjan Dey
2. Sidharath Singh
I guess Debanjan Dey has topped that cat-2008 with 246 marks...though I am not sure to say...time will tell
about admits for higher studies....NSIT must be having bigger number than IIIT... any time...any year...any day :-)
Do I need to say more?
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