THE opening up of deemed university status to standalone engineering and management colleges has enabled some institutes such as Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute 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: Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Chancellor: Mr. A.C. Shanmugam
Flagship programme: BE (Honours)
Entrance exam: AIEEE, MGR’s common entrance test 
Student intake: 1,000
Disciplines: Biotechnology, Chemical, Civil, Computer Science, Information Technology, Electrical and Electronics, Electronics and Communication, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Electronics and Telecommunication, Electronics and Instrumentation, Instrumentation and Control, Automobile, Production, Industrial
Biotechnology
Full-time faculty: 287 (Professors-57, Assistant Professors-88, Lecturers-166)
Fees (full course):  Rs. 143,500 to Rs. 273,500
Board & lodging (two years): Rs. 110,000
Approval/Accreditation: AICTE and UGC approved, NBA and NAAC accredited 
Average placement salary: Rs. 250,000
Top recruiters: Infosys, Caritor, Sutherland, Softlogic, L&T Infotech
Other programmes: MCA, MBA, MTech, MS, PhD, MBBS, BDS, MPT, BSc
Other campuses: None
Web site: www.drmgrdu.ac.in 

“Our students are to be Job creators and not Job seekers,” is the mission of this institute, which received deemed university status in the year 2003. Fully endowed, the  institute has six laboratories, an auditorium, hostels and multimedia classrooms in addition to a departmental libraries.

Currently the placement rate is at 71%, but keeping in sync with the mission statement, the placement & training cell encourages entrepreneurship.

The cell organises workshops and training in the areas of soft skills, aptitude and technical skills, in collaboration with organisations such as the British Council and finishing schools. Foreign collaborations are also on. An entrepreneur cell to promote self employment on the part of the students, is in the pipeline.

Research at the university has grown over the past few years and there are currently 73 university research staff, 262 external supervisors and 308 PhD research students, research officers and assistants. Besides this, a number of candidates are pursuing MS Programmes as well.