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

Location: Manipal, Karnataka
Chancellor: Dr. Ramdas M. Pai
Flagship programme: BE/BTech (Honours)
Entrance exam: ENAT (EPSI National Admission Test)
Student intake: 1,025
Disciplines: Aeronautical, Automobile, Biomedical, Biotechnology, Chemical, Civil, Computer Science, Electrical and Electronic, Electronics and Communication, Information and Communication, Instrumentation and Control, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Industrial and Production, Printing Technology 
Full-time faculty: Not available
Fees (full course): Rs. 580,500 + $30,000-50,000
Board & lodging (two years): Rs. 120,000 to Rs. 150,000
Approval/Accreditation: AICTE approved, NBA and NAAC accredited 
Average placement salary: Rs. 330,000
Top recruiters: Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Cisco, Honda Motors, GE
Other programmes: BArch, Integrated MBA, MSc, BSc, MCA., MTech, MDS, MPharm, MBA, MD, BA, MS, MPhil.
Other campuses: Dubai, Mangalore
Web site: www.manipal.edu

Established 57 years back, Manipal University is spread over 600 acres of green expanse and is home to 20,000 students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in several disciplines. MIT offers graduate programmes in 16 disciplines and postgraduate programmes in 21 streams.
Each engineering discipline has its own laboratories. The Electrical & Electronics Department, for instance, has a Circuits & Measurements Lab, Integrated Electronics Lab, an Electrical Machinery Lab, a Power Electronics Lab and a Microprocessors & Embedded Systems Lab. 

The MIT library comprises books (89,348), journals subscribed for the year 2009 (248), online journals (1184), back volumes of journals (10,166), CDs (2500) and video cassettes (764). E-PAC (Internet enabled Public Access Catalogue) helps the users in searching the various documents available in the library. IT facilities on campus include the Data Centre, PeopleSoft Enterprise, E-learning and Manipal Group-wide Connectivity (Manipal GWC). 
Students must complete a project in the 8th semester for four to six months, and the institute encourages companies who recruit in final placements to accept interns. The institute has a placement cell in place, headed by a faculty and coordinated by student representatives. 

Seed money is provided to transform an idea into a product for select ideas with commercial potential. Thrust areas for such projects  comprise IT in Healthcare and Agriculture and Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation System. The Innovation Centre  comprises a lab facility for design, emulation and testing for electrical sciences. The MIT hostel can house 6,080 students, and the school encourages all students to stay on campus, and it is mandatory for all first-year students to reside in the hostels.