THE opening up of deemed university status to standalone engineering and management colleges has enabled some institutes such as BITS Pilani to drastically increase capacity in the last two to three years. While the recent decision by the government to derecognise some of them came as a jolt, the Supreme Court’s decision to maintain status quo has resulted in most of these colleges moving further up on their growth path.

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While some of the deemed universities like Amrita  have begun to produce academic work of good quality, all of them have infrastructure of a reasonable quality. Some of these colleges like SRM have multi-location campuses while many others like VIT  boast of  a truly international student body. Most of them have student exchange programmes with different universities. What stands in good stead for the student is the assurance of a certain level of infrastructure and resource availability, though the level of teaching and learning experience vary widely. With individual admission processes and large capacities, these colleges do provide a better chance of obtaining an admission vis-à-vis some of the comparable state colleges. So  it makes sense to keep some of these colleges in your consideration set. 
 

College Profile: SRM University

Location: Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu. 
Director: Dr. P.K.A. Muniswaran 
Flagship programme: BE (Honours)
Entrance exam: SRMEEE
Student intake: 240 (Civil), 240 (Mechanical), 120 (Automobile), 120 (Aerospace), 120 (Mechatronics), 300 (Electrical and Communication), 60 (Telecommunication), 180 (Electrical and Electronic), 120 (Electrical and Instrumentation), 120 (Instrumentation and Control), 240 (Computer Science), 120 (Information Technology), 180 (Biotechnology), 60 (Biomedical), 40 (Bioprocess), 60 (Bioinformatics), 60 (Genetic), 60 (Food Process), 120 (Chemical), 60 (Nanotechnology), 40 (Nuclear)
Full-time faculty: 415 (Professors - 70,
Assistant Professors - 645)
Fees (full course):  Rs. 600,000
Board & lodging (two years): Rs. 106,000
Approval/Accreditation: NBA, AICTE, NAAC, UGC
Average placement salary: Not available
Top recruiters: ITC, HDFC Bank, Infotech Enterprises, Pearson, Microsoft
Other programmes: BArch, ME
Other campuses: Ramapuram, Modi Nagar
Web site: www.srmuniv.ac.in
 

WHAT began as a standalone engineering college in the year 1985, is today a multi-campus, multidisciplinary institution. In 2006, SRM gained deemed university status, and today it offers courses in engineering, medicine, management, science and humanities, though it is known for its engineering college. Admitting students through a national entrance test, nearly 80 percent of the students hail from outside Tamil Nadu. 

The Kattankulathur campus, spread over 600 acres, is almost a township with an auditorium and 100 online smart classrooms. The library resource centre houses 112,490 volumes of books comprising 42,522 titles, and subscribes to 192 national and 71 international periodicals as well.

The Semester Abroad Program sponsors meritorious students, to spend one semester at an overseas university such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon, UC Davis, Warwick and Western Australia. The Corporate Advisory Board initiative, the institute claims, facilitates collaboration between SRM and companies across industries. 

SRM Research Institute, a unit of SRM University, is an initiative aimed at supporting applied research and engineering activities. According to the college, financial assistance is available in the form of 50 percent fee waivers to students who score over 90% in CBSE and above 95% in state board examinations.

A Founder’s Scholarship provides a full waiver plus a stipend of Rs. 1,000 per month to top state, SRMEEE, JEE and AIEEE rankers, sports persons and students from specific socio-economic segments. The campus currently has 15 hostels of which nine are for men, and six for women.