Keralite CS Geek's Perspective on Engineering colleges

2024-07-24 :: 2426 words :: 13 mins

As a person who went through two years of thorough research on engineering colleges in India for my admissions, it was very evident that most people are heavily misinformed about the real state and rankings of colleges. The false general consenses created by some greedy entrance coaching centres and private colleges are making good people make bad choices. I'm writing this article in the hope that it helps aspiring engineers in their decisions.

Requirements

When judging a college, I tend to focus on the following parameters. It might slightly differ from yours, but I believe every college should be good in all of these to be considered a "good" college. So here are the factors in order of their importance:

1. Quality of Peers — Surround yourself with intelligent and hardworking people, and you yourself will tend to be like that. Surround yourself with mediocre lazy people and it becomes near impossible to rise above their level.
2. Freedom of Students — College students are legal adults who have their civil freedoms. Colleges & hostels that impose restrictions on a citizen's liberty hinder their intellectual growth.
3. Oppurtunities — These include the geographical location (cities are preferred over remote locations) and club activities, as well as a culture of participating in intercollege competitions and events.
4. Research Culture — Should be able to provide support in researching and publishing papers and preparation for higher studies.
5. Quality of Peers — Which type of companies are coming to the colleges? What's the median & highest salary?

Points 1 & 2 are usually the deciding factors. If a college is excellent overall but terrible on the first two points, I wouldn't go for it. But that only happens rarely because only colleges with those two factors perform well on the rest.

Government colleges usually tend to be good on points 1 & 2, and as a result, are better overall. The rest tends to get worse as you go down the cutoff ranks.

Private colleges usually give more importance to points 3 & 5. Lack of freedom in these colleges is a prevalent issue which I will discuss later.

Now let's move on to the colleges.

NOTE: What follows reflects my personal opinions and understanding. Consider this merely as a general indicator rather than an absolute, comprehensive description. You should do your own research before making a decision.

I'm classifying them broadly as JEE colleges (e.g IIT, NIT), private colleges (eg. BITS, VIT), and KEAM colleges (eg. CET, GEC). I'm talking about KEAM since it's for Keralites, if you are from a different state prefer yours.

JEE colleges

This section doesn't need much explaining though I will skim over some points you might miss.

IIT

Top of the top. India's most premier engineering colleges. But not all are of equal prominence, especially the newer ones, which are not quite as good as the old ones. Though in general, the quality of peers and freedom are excellent, opportunities are abundant, the research culture is the best in India, and placements are eye watering.

The dream of tens of lakhs of students, should be yours too. Getting in is hard, hard as in really, really hard. Keep in mind that once you get in, your classmates will be the most hardworking, smart people of the generation, so the classwork and exams are in that league of difficulty. Some might say it's too difficult to the point of just the genius professors trying to make it deliberately and pointlessly challenging for the students.

But it is worth it.

NIT

The lower siblings of IIT's, peers and freedom are still excellent with the only difference being a bit less funding. NIT's too have differences among them, with south Indian colleges being generally better.

Getting a seat is a bit more attainable through pure hard work and effort, due to the difference in JEE Mains & Advanced. You might see a minority of posh NRI people due to their lower cutoffs via DASA.

2nd preference after IIT.

IIIT (Indian & International)

There are two different types of IIIT's:

• Indian Institute of Information Technology
• International Institute of Information Technology

Both are built and controlled by the central government with the only difference being that the International IIITs are created in collaboration with some private companies to increase industry access.

There are only two international IIITs, Hyderabad & Banglore. Hyderabad has its own entrance test called UGEE, but they also take in students via JEE Mains & Board's (which usually requires 99%+ marks in PCM). Banglore only gives admissions via JEE Mains & Boards.

These two colleges are similar, if not slightly better than NITs, due to their specialisation in circuital branches (ie. CSE, ECE, etc.) and being a bit more oriented towards research.

The Indian IIITs are a step down from NITs in quality of students with little difference in freedom and a bit more gap in funding. And as always some IIIT's are comparatively better than others.

It is also worth noting that this is the phase where some students skip going to government colleges and start to prefer good private colleges.

Private colleges

Better-funded colleges with good infrastructure, usually with a more strict and restrictive environment. And contrary to what most people think, you cannot pay your way into good private colleges, you have to write their entrance tests and score well in school board exams.

BITS Pilani

The most reputed private college in India, considered to be in the same league as NIT's. Their entrance test (BITSAT) is also nearly as tough to crack as JEE Mains.

The fee is high, with a total 4 year degree costing nearly 40 lakhs, but placement salaries are much higher, hence a pretty good choice if you have the money to pay.

Pilani campus is always preferred, with Goa and others being a tiny bit behind it.

Unlike many other private colleges, it is owned and funded by a corporation, and contrary to what the fee might indicate, the college itself is not really profit driven. This non-profit ideology is pretty admirable in your college experience.

MIT Manipal

Heavily underrated college, excellent and well funded campus, top tier facilities, really good freedom for students. Their entrance test (MET) is mostly intermediate JEE mains questions, and getting into CSE is almost as hard as getting into a IIIT, and the quality of peers is good.

Fee, though not as much BITS, still totals around 30 lakhs, but it does reduce depending on your academic performance.

They also have an upcoming campus in Bangalore, which boasts really good internships due to closeness to industry compared to the main campus. The facilities are on par with the main campus but in a smaller area. As of the time of writing, the first batch of that campus has not yet passed out, so the actual benefits are still unknown.

Due to poor PR management, there is a general consensus that Manipal town is a centre of illicit drug and cannibis usage. This is a blown up issue of little importance because even higher amounts of drug use have been found in other government and private colleges.

SSN Chennai

One of the most reputed colleges in Tamil Nadu, with CS placements and academics nearing IIIT's and NIT's. Generally less known outside of Tamil Nadu due to most seats being reserved for only Tamils.¹

About 30 seats from every batch are given according to extracurriculars, interviews, and an aptitude test, and it is open to everybody meeting a certain cutoff in 12th board marks.

Quality of students is really good, and freedom is described as being similar to a government college. It is also a corporate-owned, non-profit college, similar to BITS.

Fee totals around 14 lakhs, which is really cheap compared to other private colleges in its league. But admission is tight.

VIT Vellore

On paper VIT is a good college. It has good infrastructure, good professors, and has a sizeable population of quality students. Placements are not too shabby either. It even has an NIRF ranking of 11.

But VIT has a couple of big cons, the primary one being lack of freedom. From personally talking² to many students at VIT, none of them spoke in support of it. This is quite a deviation, because students generally tend to support their own colleges. The large crowd is also a double edged sword, because even though more students imply more active clubs and functions, it also causes overcrowded hostels and stampedes at rush hours. Good hostel rooms and classes of good professors are given according to each student's CGPA, which brings a bit more toxic competitiveness between students.

Notably, it has a policy of not allowing students who are attempting to pursue masters to sit for campus placements.

There also exists this so called PDA guards which actively monitors and fines if a couple is seen doing anything romantic. (Not that it applies to me 🥲).

Getting admission is comparitively very easy. You just have to be willing to pay up. Though their entrance test and admission process are a little shady.

A note on other private colleges

There are colleges like SRM, Amritha, Bennet, LPU, Jain, etc which are quite bad to say the least. Their fees are through the roof but placements and all are abysmal, the ones that do get placed are exceptions, not the norm.

Please try to avoid such colleges and only choose them if you have no other choices.

KEAM colleges

This section is just for people from Kerala, others look into your own state's entrance scene.

The KEAM ranklist is based 50% on your school board PCM marks and 50% on the entrance exam. The board marks are normalised between boards to keep things "fair".³

The top 5-6 colleges are pretty good, due to them being government colleges with excellent freedom and admirable quality of students. The rest are a bit hit or miss. Even if you don't get a seat via the entrance test, you might still be able to get one via management seat.

I made a pdf of the list of engineering colleges in kerala in ascending order of cutoff ranks. Even though its just the list for CSE, it should give a rough idea of the status of colleges.

KEAM Cutoffs for B.Tech CSE 2023 Third Phase.pdf

Though I do believe some colleges require special mention.

CET, Thiruvanathapuram

College of Engineering Trivandrum, the most reputed and preferred college in Kerala. The only college with actually good placements. You'll be studying with the creamy layer malayalee students.

The culture is as much or more important than the academics at CET. The campus politics scene is pretty lively too.

The brand value is real and very strong among the people of Kerala.

GEC, Thrissur

The quality of students and campus infrastructure are practically the same as CET, with some even preferring it due to it being more "chill". Pretty fine college, with a pretty good reputation. The only thing to note is that placements aren't quite as good as CET.

Close proximity to Vimala college is a plus, if you know what i mean 😉.

MEC, Thrikkakkara

Govt. Model Enginering College Thrikkakara has a decent track record of performing well, due to it only having circuital branches. The placements are actually slightly better than even CET (in CSE & ECE).

The biggest con is that the infrastructure is not that good. It's a pretty small campus, and campus life itself isn't comparable to others in its league.

My Journey

Background: I studied in the (PCM+CS) stream in Kerala Syllabus, and attended weekend coaching classes for JEE Mains. I am a general category male with no reservations whatsoever.

This was my preference list:

IIT > NIT > IIIT (International) > BITS > IIIT (Indian) > SSN > MIT > CET > VIT > GEC > MEC > Other KEAM colleges.

I had 93.98 in JEE Mains and was eligible to write the JEE Advanced. I had 3.1k in MET (Manipal), 14k in VITEEE (VIT). In 12th board exams I had A+ (90%+) on all subjects with 96% in PCM combined.

I did write UGEE & did apply via board marks at IIIT Hybderabad & Banglore, but did not clear cutoffs. I also didn't clear JEE Advanced as I missed the cutoff by a small margin. I didn't get BITS either.

Since my target was CS and CS only, JoSaa (IIT, NIT, IIIT's) was out of the question. I did get CSE at VIT, Vellore (at Cat 4, ie 4.5lk per annum) and got admission there as a backup. Meanwhile I did attend the interview at SSN Chennai, but I wasn't very sure I'd get it. At MIT I'd only get CSE at Banglore campus but I did get admission there as a backup and filed for refund at VIT.

At this time, I received the admission letter from SSN, and I took it.

Closing Remarks

As for me, I'm quite happy where I ended up, considering the amount of effort I put in. I shall post more updates as time goes on.

You should know that engineering is not for everyone and that it is heavily overrated. If you geniunly like Physics, Chemistry or Mathematics you should pursue a degree in pure sciences and go for research in IISER, IISC, etc.

I hope you make the correct decision for you and for the future of humanity.

Please share any thoughts/comments you have via mail at vicfic@pm.me