THE opening up of deemed university status to standalone engineering and management colleges has enabled some institutes such as Vignan University 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: Vignan University

Location: Vadlamudi, Andhra Pradesh
Chancellor: Dr. L. Rathaiah
Flagship programme: BTech
Entrance exam: V-SAT’10 or AIEEE/JEE or EAMCET
Student intake: 1040 [20 (Biotechnology), 20 (Chemical), 40(Civil), 120 (Computer Science), 60 (Information Technology), 120 (Electrical and Electronics), 420 (Electronics and Communication), 180 (Mechanical), 60 (Mechatronics)] 
Full-time faculty: 256 (Professors-26, Associate Professors-50, Assistant Professors-180) 
Fees (full course):  Rs. 349,000 Board & lodging (two years): Rs. 110,000
Approval/Accreditation: AICTE and UGC approved, NBA accredited 
Average placement salary: Rs. 174,000
Top recruiters: TATA Consultancy, Applabs, Sutherland Global Services, ICICI Prudential,
Infosys Technologies 
Other programmes: MTech, MBA
Other campuses: None
Website:www.vignanuniversity.org

Set on a 31-acre campus, Vignan University, located 15 km away from Guntur, houses eight engineering schools, offering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across disciplines. Bright students can avail of full-fee and part-fee waiver scholarships for their undergrad studies. 

The campus has two open air theatres, each with a seating capacity for 1,500-2,000 students. The central library houses more than 40,000 volumes, audio-visual materials and approximately 200 national and international journals. I

t can seat 600 students and has an enclave for research students. Global associations have been forged with the University of Fraser Valley, Canada, Edinburgh Napier University, UK and University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA.

The institute claims that its UG and PG students can pursue their projects with BHEL, ECIL & BEL. Besides, some corporations might  support incubation centres at the campus. The Placement & Training Cell organises several training sessions by in-house faculty and guest lecturers to help improve soft skills and domain knowledge, to prepare students for placements. 

Hostel facilities are there for around 1,000 students, and the food available on campus is mostly vegetarian.