<p>IIT does have an application fee btw</p>
<p>Is there also an exam fee? what are the 2 fees in U.S. dollars?</p>
<p>Its really cheap ( like 8 - 10 dollars). Btw one can decide which place/major he/ she wants. If you are ranked in the top 500, you can surely do anything you want.
:D</p>
<p>IIT may be selective, all asian universities are really selective, but it doesn't make it good. schools like beijing university, IIT don't even come close to MIT, or Harvard.</p>
<p>Ah, true.<br>
My parent's stories of getting into the Univ. of Seoul (?) as being very hard to get into back in the days, just because it was the only univ. people wanted to get into (i'm guessing this is similar to IIT). Idk about the selectivity, but ivies and MIT definitely beat Seoul Univ.</p>
<p>Xinghua university and Beijing University in China are probably just as difficult as IIT to get admissions into. You have millions of kids competing with you on a national test in which the highest score is ~660 out of 750.</p>
<p>how do you know jeff? are you going based on gut instinct? have you ever even read about it, or are you just spewing whatever you feel like because MIT and Harvard are what youve laways been told are the best? you know, other countries have pretty damn good education systems too, some often better than ours...</p>
<p>Jeffl: If you're a computer engineer or engineer of any sort, you'd know that IIT and Beijing graduates are considered better or as good as Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Stanford grads...</p>
<ul>
<li>to get into IIT you got to give the written exam</li>
<li>Not all students give the written exam coz they know tht they are not smart enuf (I am in India and would love to go to IIT, but I am dumb compared to those IIT geeks)</li>
<li>150,000 qualified applicants for 4000 seats</li>
<li>the school is definitely geekly, but very powerful alumni base. It is like a faternity where the alumni will get you the jobs tht you want</li>
<li>students tend to have plenty of options after graduation. Some decide to go to the US, but many stay back and take jobs that would positively impact India's economy etc.</li>
<li>in terms of recognition in the US. 60 minutes, a very famous tv show, ran an hour long episode on IIT (twice) last year.</li>
<li>Private Equity and venture capital - two of the most lucrative financial fields is dominated by IIT grads ranging from silicon valley, wall street to banglore.</li>
<li>Silicon valley is also dominated by IITians. take a stroll down san jose and you will know what i am talking about</li>
</ul>
<p>in short, the school is a good technical school - but that is all you will ever learn (no history classes in IIT). but hell, you will know more about tech than 99.99% of the ppl in the world. Also, it can lead to a lot of $$ but IIT will also teach you how to balance $$ with life</p>
<p>as for the most selective college - i think it is IIM (indian institute of management) tht offers MBA and got 128,000 applications for 1200 seats (i think...)</p>
<p>As Jeffl pointed out, the top universities in all asian countries are really selective. However, selectivity is not a good (or fair) indicator for comparing academic quality of universities in different countries. IIT draws from a pool of the second largest population where most of the students cannot afford to study abroad without a full ride. Of course it is highly selective. The same reason that Tsinghwa and Beijing U are highly selective in China; and Seoul U is highly selective in Korea.</p>
<p>You can't say that IIT is better than MIT and Harvard BECAUSE it is more selective ... the correlation is not there as the selectivity is not measured on the same basis.</p>
<p>You can say that IIT is as good or better than MIT and Harvard if you can prove that IIT has more rigorous curriculum, better facilities and better faculties. If that is indeed the case, you will expect to see IIT faculties leading their fields in research and publications.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I am well aware that IIT is an excellent institution for engineering. I am just pointing out that relative selectivity is not a meaningful measurement when comparing universities in different countries...it's like comparing apples and oranges.</p>
<p>p.s. TsingHwa and Beijing U are extremely difficult to get in for Chinese students. However, both reserve some quota for 'international' applicants which is not that competitive. Most of the 'international' students do reasonably well in class once they are in.</p>
<p>" If that is indeed the case, you will expect to see IIT faculties leading their fields in research and publications."</p>
<p>I don't hear much about Amherst/Williams/Pomona/Swarthmore, etc faculties doing cutting-edge research and making big publications. Gee, those schools must be bad. </p>
<p>If IIT grads are as successful as adides describes, then something must be going right. good teaching and curriculum to prepare IIT students for the job market perhaps?</p>
<p>look up a good US school and look up some 'indian named' faculties (which will be there at every school) and look up their bio. a lot of them are from iits</p>
<p>also about VC and PE - look up the midas list on forbes (the link is just too long to post) and you will see the top 2 names are IIT grads
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/%5B/url%5D">http://www.forbes.com/lists/</a></p>
<p>but still i am not sayin tht iit is better than mit, stanford or caltech because at MIT you have a choice of taking variety of classes outside tech tht you are not afforded at iit. i would rather be a well rounded person than being a geek</p>
<p>hmmm but adides atleast 30 % of the applicant pool i.e. those who take JEE take it just for kicks. I say so because thats what a majority of 12thies in noida and delhi ( and even other cities) do every year. </p>
<p>Secondly to say IItians know more about tech than stanford and MIT or stanford grads is crazy. How is one supposed to know that? I think saying they are equal is okay but MORE would perhaps be an overstatement.</p>
<p>i agree and i repeat from my previous post
"but still i am not sayin tht iit is better than mit, stanford or caltech because at MIT you have a choice of taking variety of classes outside tech tht you are not afforded at iit. i would rather be a well rounded person than being a geek"</p>
<p>Taking a few liberal arts classes will not make one 'well rounded.' Do you honestly think anyone remembers anything they learned in their core curriculum classes two months after graduation?</p>
<p>IIT is every bit as good MIT for undergrad. IITians are worshipped in the tech industry.</p>
<p>gshine - its every1's individual perspective...my mom went to iit and she recommends me to not go there coz she belives tht she missed out on everythin else except for engineerin...</p>
<p>"I don't hear much about Amherst/Williams/Pomona/Swarthmore, etc faculties doing cutting-edge research and making big publications. Gee, those schools must be bad."</p>
<p>Again you are not comparing like to like. IIT offers post-graduate and doctorial programs. It should be compared with research universities, not LAC's. Btw, you can look up the faculty credentials of IIT and AWS on their respective websites and answer your own question.</p>
<p>The main point of my post is that selectivity is not a good measure when comparing universities in different countries. I'd be interested in hearing more about the curriculum, facilities and faculty...and in general what makes IIT a great technical learning institution. I'd be interested to hear from IIT grads who have also attended MIT (and might have taught a few undergrad classes). They are in the best position to compare the two schools based on first hand experience.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I the United States, Princeton, Yale and Harvard receive about 14 applications for each freshman slot. Does anyone know the ratio for IIT?
[/quote]
It's more than 50. Each year around 2.5 lac (250,000) students appear for the test for one of the ~4200 seats. lildude_ravi's figure of 1.5 lac is a bit old. That gives around 60 applicants for each seat.
[quote]
But if IIT does not have an app fee and there is no exam fee, I can understand what your saying.
[/quote]
IIT has a fee of Rs 600 for general applicants. That will be, relatively speaking, equal to the standard $60 for US universities.
[quote]
If it's so competitive why do lower performing students take the exam for ITT? It would seem like a waste of time?
[/quote]
The fact is, virtually all IIT grads are among the highest paid people in the country. Countless graduates from other institutes lay jobless for years here in India, but with IIT (due to the hype value) it's different. There is huge campus placement and so virtually all IIT grads end up with a job beore they've even graduated, and the starting salary is astronomical (by Indian standards). That is why almost anyone who has taken Phy,Chem and Math at school is expected to sit for the JEE and compete to get into ONE of the IITs. It doesn't even matter which IIT or even which major you want (which you can hardly decide anyway). Those who don't make it, often end up studying at other institutions, and after graduating, keep struggling throughout their lives for a decent living. Unlike the US, there are hardly any universities of repute other than the IITs (for engineering at least).
[quote]
There are many other very good schools in India that provide the same oppurtunity. My parents came here in the 90's, did not attend IIT and are doing better off than some IIT grads.
[/quote]
Mediterranean is entirely right. Your parents might be an exception. The bottomline, after all arguments, is that if you go to IIT, your life is set (almost like a magic wand), if you don't, you'll keep struggling the rest of your life and succeed in only rare cases.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Mediterranean is entirely right. Your parents might be an exception. The bottomline, after all arguments, is that if you go to IIT, your life is set (almost like a magic wand), if you don't, you'll keep struggling the rest of your life and succeed in only rare cases.
[/quote]
You really think so merc? I'm surprised. I thought you were talking about stereotypes earlier but I guess not.</p>
<p>Competition for entrance to IIT is extremely cut throat, I think some like 2% of applicants are admitted, my friend's father went there and he said it was a really good learning environment. Btw, Xinghua and Beijing University are both extremely hard to get into.</p>
<p>These schools make MIT, CalTech, and Princeton admissions seem easy. The students who go to the extremely good schools have a good chance of going to the USA, which is why most of the Asians you see here are so brilliant at mathematics and school (make no mistake, not all Asians are geniuses with 1600 SATs, although a very large majority are very hard working).</p>