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This question was asked during the Q&A session when we visited Caltech. According to one of the admissions directors (Mr. Ray Prado), fewer girls apply there. If you visit both campuses you kind of understand why.</p>
<p>Well Im sure the admissions guys wont say that they give preference to girls. But its a well known fact that AA exists and girls are favoured just like legacies. At Caltech though that is not the case. Im not being a misogynist or anything, just stating a well known fact. AA exists. Im also not making normative judgements about whether it should or not, just making a positive statement.</p>
<p>I hate the Indian education system and from my points of view it is wrong. I say it should be corrected. Perhaps I become a little too aggressive when I post my views but that’s instinctive when I talk about it. How does that make me an idealist? I am a very close to a realist in real life; only that my style of work is much much different than others. I perfectly know what I want and have to do, and I try my best to do it. At the end hardwork (combined with smartwork) will pay off, but I still don’t believe that I can ever live in utopia. PD, I am not one of those guys who believe that everything is heaven in the US. I perfectly know I have as much chance as struggling with my career as I might have to succeed at one go. But that won’t put me off. As for the admissions, yeah, it might be a game, but as everyone knows, you can’t just collect a number of random ECs and go in, but I know no admission process can be perfect. It’s just that I stand a helluva lot more chance there than here. So I’m not wayyyyyy too idealistic, but more like a balanced guy; neither idealistic nor realistic.And I feel that’s fine; and required,* a balance between the two.* My views about Indian education system is just my point of view and I have the right to defend it. </p>
<p>Damn, it’s surprising how a very miniscule intended reply turns out to be a long one. :p</p>
<p>And the facts that nomadMIT posted are one of the main reasons of my animosity towards the IIT. But changes will be applied in the system hopefully by time.</p>
<p>hey can anyone let me know what’s AA?</p>
<p>Well whatever everyone’s point of view may be about the IITs. Even for those looking to go into research, they present fantastic value. From IITs you have great footing to get into US grad schools where you can do some real research and if you wanna do a job right away you can do that too. And all this for peanuts? </p>
<p>Also nomad, Im sorry but solving some differential equations only means you know some freshman mathematics, it doesnt mean you can understand the math involved in cutting edge scientific papers. Just saying, dont go in with great expectations of research in UG at least. You might be disappointed.</p>
<p>I DO NOT WISH TO DO RESEARCH. I said it before and i’m saying it again. I want a patent. It may be for the railgun project i wish to pursue, it may be for an electric car i develop, it may be for a new robot i design, or it may be for a new synthetic substance like a new polymer or something. I havent decided yet. With this patent in hand i wish to open a company that will mass produce this good that i have a patent for. I do not think it will involve cutting edge mathematics. I plan to begin working on my project in undergraduate years and if it gets completed well and good, if not i’ll go in for PG and continue my project and i think it should get completed by then if it doesnt i’ll probably get a job. And i dont think i can do it alone i’ll need a team.
I said it before and i’m saying it again, IIT’s are fantastic. In fact they are best in india, that is why i’m enrolling there in the first place. But i say if i can get something better for me why not try? There is no harm in it. I do not wish to have any regrets in life later like if i would have applied my life could have been better etc. If you feel that i’ll regret leaving IIT and enrolling at an US university like Caltech or MIT or Cornell please do let me know why?<br>
Another reason i want to transfer is because i can gain knowledge in multiple fields that are necessary for my projects and successfully run my company if i ever open one. At iit i’ll only me able to study about computer science or electronics or mechanical, i’ll have to make a choice between them and my projects are pretty inter-disciplinary.</p>
<p>Well doing a project requires research. And my post is not just directed at you, its to everyone.</p>
<p>AA stands for affirmative action. It does nt apply to girls admissions in colleges. It is more like the reservation system in India but not an openly declared system where they try to admit under represented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Pacific Islanders etc). Asians are also in this category but they are over represented in most top schools compared to their general population in US (4.8%) and so the Ivies try to control them at 18% while MIT and Caltech being open in their admissions, admit whoever is considered superior as opposed to keeping the ratio of Asians to a specific number.</p>
<p>Most colleges try to balance the sexes in colleges but they don’t always get to 50%. If you look at Harvard, it is always 52% men but if you look at Yale, it is 52% women. MIT attracts a very superior crowd of women and I am surprised at PD’s misogynistic comments if he is alluding that women can get in more easily into MIT. As a male parent in US, I am telling you right now that anyone who takes girls lightly after showing up in US is in for a rude shock because some of the girls are far far far superior to number 1 ranks in JEE (remember the number 1s know how to solve book problems but these girls have already spent 4 or 5 years in actual labs and have won the Intel/Siemen/BioGenius and you name it prizes for finding new things). PD will find out the hard way at Stanford that there are women who are far superior to him and if he takes them lightly, it will be at his own peril.</p>
<p>I know of at least one girl who is going to MIT after turning down Harvard, Princeton and a two year fellowship at a 100k to do research from Thiele foundation without going to college right now. They are driven and unbelievably good. Most of you know one PerfectPixie but across the top colleges in US, there are thousands like her who are all great in their own way.</p>
<p>Oh my! I had been so unaware of this! thanks texaspg! I appreciate your help!</p>
<p>Im sorry Texaspg, I must disagree with you on this. While girls are not to be underestimated and should be respected, from my knowledge, affirmative action extends to girls as well. Perhaps I am wrong but well.</p>
<p>Also you are severely underestimating our rank 1s in JEE. They are probably about the most hardworking and intelligent people in the entire world. To be honest, american unis are a lot easier to get into(thankfully) than the IIT which requires years of intense and assiduous preparation. Very few americans subject themselves to such academic discipline in high school. This is not to say that americans are less able. In fact my peers at Caltech are far more able than I am. Im just saying that the indian system is more competitive being a larger country with fewer resources than the US. Those who manage to get through it should truly be lauded for their single-minded devotion toward academic excellence.</p>
<p>Btw im referring mostly to MIT as PD said.</p>
<p>Why should be they lauded? I still don’t get that. In fact, IITs don’t deserve passionate people. “They don’t deserve us,” was the only thing a (few) friend(s) of mine studying in IIIT (Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology) said to me. He said that they just don’t care what level of programming you might have achieved; they just want a ****ing rank. And tell you that guy’s got a brilliant personality and he’s knowledgeable in his field as well.</p>
<p>Idealist or realist, it doesn’t matter. Passion-driven education matters a lot to some people.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as affirmative action for girls unless you want to talk about all girls colleges where only girls are allowed.</p>
<p>As I said, It is all book knowledge in India. Your practical application knowledge is zero at this point. When you show up at Caltech, you will find girls who can do things in labs that you will have no idea can even be done. Eventually you will get there (in a year or two) and catch up.</p>
<p>There are a lot of superior people to you that are turned down from MIT and Caltech if they are from US because the number of seats are restricted. A lot of them are actually Asians who end up going to Berkeley or some other State college. There is a quota (AA if you want to call it that) for International students who get admitted at all colleges to provide diversity while the number of Asians being admitted locally is being restricted to a specific percentage. So the perception is not reality in terms of competition because you don’t know all those people that were actually turned down, how equally good they are compared to those that were admitted because the admitted ones probably wrote a better essay.</p>
<p>Hi, It’s been a long time since I’ve been on CC, but I saw the current flamewar about IIT and thought I might contribute my two cents :)</p>
<p>I have asked many of my professors whether they think that personality, passion, programming talent et al should figure in IIT admissions, and to my surprise, the answer has been an unequivocal no. The reason seems to be that IIT exists to teach you these things: If you are in IIT, not only are you smart enough to learn how to program, you also have the capability to work harder than the next person. If you already are a great programmer, then you should also learn the virtue of hard work, even if you don’t like a particular branch of physics, chem or math. It does seem that IIT encourages generalism rather than passionate specialists, but I have personally seen elite hackers, national basketballers and allround awesome people get <100 ranks despite their demanding extra-curricular activities. The stereotypical nerdy IITian is, in my (admittedly limited) experience, rarely found on an IIT campus.
Face it there ARE people who have done cutting-edge research, have practical hands-on knowledge of the world around them AND have good JEE ranks. It might not seem fair to those on the flip side of the JEE, but I believe that is a down-side of our demographic giftedness. 
Regarding the IIT stereotypes on post #332, yes, we have antisocial nerds (Lets face it, some of the stories have to be true) but most of us are honest, down-to-earth people who truly are thankful they selected the correct boxes to tick in the last few minutes of the JEE. The story about the IITKGP Dean does seem to be rather apocryphal as I am sure most you would have understood.
Also, there are literally hundreds of research fellowships offered to IIT UGs (of all years) by leading research institutes like IISc, TIFR and others. If you really want to do research, you won’t be stopped. In my experience, MOST professors are very supportive of student initiavtives. Unfortunately, government red tape is a rather difficult hurdle to cross.
Thank you for reading through this rather verbose post: I just felt like standing up for my alma mater. If people in some other colleges say IIT didn’t deserve them, then all I can say is thank you for not considering us worth your time.
-Current IIT student</p>
<p>You mean, even that large diversity of nerds who qualify from Kota cram schools? That can’t be.</p>
<p>Although I haven’t personally been there myself, I know people from Kota who have played football on the streets at 2 AM, sneaked into the girls’ hostels and done other things that most nerds don’t do 
I’m not saying that there aren’t the sort of people you describe. All I’m asking that you accept the heterogeneity of the IIT crowd. Out of the 9k students who enter each year, surely you don’t think everyone is a cram-school hardened geek?
And you’d be surprised at the kinds of ideas a cram-school hardened geek can come up with :P</p>
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<p>Without contributing further to this heated discussion, I have to agree with mnkgsh. JEE students are stereotyped excessively. I can say this from personal experience - my brother made it to IITD, with a very good AIR (<150) and I can say with surety that he didn’t study 16 hours a day OR go 5 days without taking baths. I think most of the above posts have been exaggerated to quite an extent.</p>
<p>Let’s return to the topic at hand: US Admissions for 2016ers.</p>
<p>okay, I take the responsibility to change the topic :P</p>
<p>Is it worth taking up an education loan and not applying for financial aid in need aware colleges like stanford? Has anyone known of a person who did this thing?</p>
<p>Nice question iamthebist!</p>
<p>To be honest, I have no idea :D</p>
<p>All the people I know have only two opinions on this, either they have the money to pay their way through college or they close this option of a US education because of financial issues.</p>
<p>I have never seen any peer talking about taking education loans.</p>