<p>Some institutions of India, such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), have been globally acclaimed for their standard of undergraduate education in engineering . The IITs enroll about 8000 students annually and the alumni have contributed to both the growth of the private sector and the public sectors of India.</p>
<p>Are there any parents out there thinking about moving to India for college? Or maybe moving to India once your child reaches school age so they can get a top notch education?</p>
<p>I doubt my kids (one of whom has a 5/6 fellowship at Princeton) could ever get in to ITT. And ECs, family money, legacies, or sports wouldn’t help in the least.</p>
<p>It’d be ironic since it seems that so many of the grad schools here in computer science and some other areas are filled with students from India and China.</p>
<p>Even if one wanted to go to school at ITT in India, are the courses taught in English? Does ITT accept many foreigners? Given the selectivity of the school, is there much chance for a foreigner to attend given they didn’t follow the same path as one in India?</p>
<p>Regardless - there’s no way I’d move my family to India for college when there are plenty of fine colleges here. Maybe I’d think about it if I was from India and thought there was a reasonable shot at the college.</p>
<p>Was your post really targeted at Indians who are living in the USA or non-Indian Americans as well?</p>
<p>Only about 1 in 75 applicants gets into IIT, totally by examination. However, one has to pass another examination before taking the IIT exam. A certain number of places are reserved for those from what are known as backward/scheduled castes; so for the usual applicant, admit rates are roughly 1%. Many Indians then go to Europe or the U.S. for advanced degrees. These days, many of them head back to India, as there are greater opportunities.</p>
<p>I believe English is the medium of instruction, but am not absolutely sure that is true on all campuses.</p>
<p>I second glido. The clients I have from India (including some IIT grads) go back to visit loved ones periodically, but make it clear they’d never go back and live there, nor would they want their children doing so.</p>
<p>Maybe the ones you see. I see hundreds, even thousands returning, and you should see what the real estate looks like, with 29-story luxury apartments, with country club amenities, their own schools, health clubs, golf courses, springing up just one mile from where I am now. (and the apartments here cost as much as they do in New York.)</p>
<p>(I am having dinner tonight with one such family, CEO of a software company, with two children in U.S. universities, lived in Toronto, and moved back here. Mother raises funds for a school for children with leprosy.)</p>
<p>I agree, let your kid go to India for public service, but please do not take a spot at ILT. One less kid who doesnt have so many options will lose out.</p>
<p>I rarely mention my undergrad school, IIT, because it’s often time confused with ITT here. Had I lived in India, DS would have been a prime candidate for applying there, but there is no way I would have wanted him to go there instead of the school he went to here. I may have been able to handle the calculus or physics problem a little better than he could, but in skills needed in the world, he is orders of magnitude better than me. The opportunities for a motivated student and the flexibility in selecting areas of studies in a tier 3 engineering school here are vastly better than in a top tier school there.</p>
<p>Regarding the issue of selectivity making it better than US schools - the fact is (or was during my time, and probably still true to a great extent) practically every math/sci kid in HS across the country applied either out of choice or because of the parents’ desire. So the denominator became artificially huge. The reason MIT or for that matter any US school doesn’t have that level of selectivity is because students have a much wider option and choose not to apply in numbers to these schools. Not a single student from my kids’ HS class applied to MIT or Caltech because they saw better matches. </p>
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<p>Maybe if most Princeton students are in the arts or finance or whatever, this would be true. Most math/sci students wouldn’t have a problem handling the course difficulty, but many would probably dislike the manner of education, the opportunity to delve deeply in areas that interest them, the ability to change, internship, etc. When DS was in HS and attended numerous math contests, I would coach and help out in the practice sessions, and have no doubt that the best amongst them were as capable or better in math as any IIT classmate of mine.</p>
<p>The argument that the curriculum is super rigorous is really not true is especially accurate now that a sizeable percentage, like half, is reserved for non-merit students who are typically at an academically lower level. Actually there was a small foreign student quota during my days typically filled by people from Malaysia or sometimes the middle east, and it may apply to US students too.</p>
<p>Having said these negatives, the only area we did consider sending the kids to school in India was for med/vet school - DW felt that for someone whose mind was clearly made up to go to medicine/vet, the 5-1/2 year med program (or similar vet prog) there would avoid all the non-medical courses that DD ultimately ended up taking for her 4 year degree here. She also felt the opportunity for the motivated student for hands on training was a lot more there because of the huge volume, and less rigid requirements/protocol for what a student could do. But again you have issues involving obstacles for foreign med students, the manner of education, living conditions etc. We checked with a dozen students who had done this and most were mildly negative to heavily so, with a couple being happy - one complained that her middle aged prof gave her an ultimatum to either marry him so they could both settle in the US or he’d make sure she’d never pass.</p>
<p>My d. teaches undergraduates at Princeton. They are wonderful, bright, creative, often gifted, intelligent students, often from wealthy families, with the most excellent of opportunities. And today, no, most Princeton students couldn’t hack the competition to get into ITT. (as to what actually happens at the schools, today, which have changed mightily in the past 20 years, I couldn’t say.)</p>
<p>I have a grandnephew newly admitted. I have seen him regularly for the past three years. There has NEVER been a time that he hasn’t been studying 10-14 hours a day, 7 days a week. His school schedule is 8-5, and six days a week, he has had special tutoring beginning at 6, and ending at 9. He gets home, eats, an begins his homework at 10. I have never seen him go out for a meal, a film, a sporting event - in fact, I have almost never seen him at meals. Now mind you - he was one of those competing for places reserved for scheduled castes - it is HUGELY more competitive for even them than the experience Dad<em>of</em>3 speaks of, because, across the country, education of scheduled castes has taken huge strides. </p>
<p>Would the average Princeton student want it? I’d sincerely doubt it. I doubt that many Indian students really want it - they are pushed in that direction, and often don’t feel they have a choice. But no, most Princeton students today couldn’t hack the competition to get in (nor should they have to).</p>
<p>Right, but I’m thinking they must still have a long way to go, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many Indians clamoring to get into US colleges. There’s a big brain drain out of India as many of its best and brightest flee to universities in the US and the UK.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. Read the comments to Indian physician H. I personally like the US system of an undergrad education before devoting all of one’s time to medical training better. H has said I must have taken a course in everything. One semester of Art History, one of Symphony- those are 2 valuable cultural additions to my education in Chemistry I would never have gotten with the busy medical training and work. Needing to make the life career choice when barely 18 is also a disadvantage.</p>
<p>We never considered an Indian school for our son- and he has never even visited it (inlaws kept coming here). H was very Americanized when I met him- no one foot in each country like many Indians seem to. Where one visits makes a difference- those from rich, luxurious surroundings with servants pampering them on home visits have a much different experience than visiting parents in a small condo…</p>
<p>"Right, but I’m thinking they must still have a long way to go, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many Indians clamoring to get into US colleges. There’s a big brain drain out of India as many of its best and brightest flee to universities in the US and the UK. "</p>
<p>Right you are! There are 250 million middle-class Indians, more than in the U.S. (and maybe than the U.S. and U.K. combined.) Public universities haven;t come close to keeping pace. So there is an explosion of private for-profit institutions - some of them excellent, many, many of them putrid. IIT has only around 8,000 students total (though there are new campuses planned). Places at the medical colleges (I have 19 doctors in the family - all educated in India, though one, born in Chicago, will enter medical school in the states next year) are few and far between. And because many more scheduled and backward caste folks are now getting (or buying) a decent education, pressures are becoming ever more intense. </p>
<p>Having said that, I think India is catching up very, very quickly.</p>
<p>Which one, the one that could ace standard tests at a young age or the one who’s half as good as her sister on tests but almost straight-As in courses and gets the job offer as along as she gets the interview? I could imagine both teaching at Princeton.</p>
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<p>Suppose he went on to win a gold medal in IMO. Do US students who also won gold medals work that hard, that efficiently?</p>
<p>The first d. (definitely not the second, who wouldn’t be caught dead there! She’d think the idea hilarious).</p>
<p>I am sure there are students in the U.S. every bit as driven as those in India (poor kids!). But nearly as many, and certainly not the norm. (and, frankly, I think that is a good thing). As for the winners of anything, outliers are not good indicators of anything.</p>
<p>My perspective as someone who hires engineers: The two IIT graduates I have worked with, one a mechanical engineer and the other a chemist, had exceptional theoretical knowledge but weak practical skills. I got the impression that even the best Indian universities tend to overemphasize theory to compensate for a lack of access to state-of-the-art equipment. Of course, this can be very useful in certain careers, but most American employers are looking for skills, not just knowledge. (Again, this is my limited experience with just two IIT grads.)</p>