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RAHUL Puri, a student of Tamil Nadu State Board is tense. His  IIT-JEE results are out and he does not stand a chance. He is confident of cracking AIEEE, but the scores will be out only by June 6. He has given the State Board exam but is awaiting results. He has offers of admissions from two private universities and both want him to join before May 31. 

CORE SECTOR revival has greatly increased options for the non-circuit branches.

• Should I wait for AIEEE or should I take VIT admissions?
• Will I get a seat in Mechanical at NIT Trichy?
• Is LNMIIIT a good bet?
• Which branch would be suitable for me? Is Mechanical still the coveted branch?
• Do IT and Computer Science have any more traction?

 
The engineering ball game
Admissions is a complicated process because it varies by the entrance exam, the type of institution and the State in which the institution is located.  Like  Rahul, one in four engineering aspirants takes the IIT. Maybe one in two would take AIEEE and almost everyone eligible would look at the state-level test/admissions. The only exceptions would be those who score very high but still prefer a St. Stephen’s to NIT, Trichy. Such a tribe is very minuscule. The students have a hierarchy of admissions:

• Established IITs - Top priority
• Established NITs - Second Priority
• Established players
• New players who have brand recall - next level
• Other colleges

Narrow your search today! Find best engineering colleges 2012 
 

 
If the admissions schedule too follow this criterion, life would be easy for the student. But that is not the case. The private and deemed universities begin their counselling quite early, the AIEEE counselling goes on for about two-and-a-half months and State counselling varies from a one-time face-to-face affair lasting five minutes to a three-round online affair. In such times, being prepared is the least a student can do.

STUDENT PROJECTS from a crucial element of engineering education

Branch selection process
Irrespective of the number of entrances you give or colleges you apply to, have a list of branches you would prefer says Prof.  Rajbir Singh, Faculty at KMM engineering College. But group them in lots of three he suggests - like Mech, ECE and IT - as your first group. Have four such combinations. Effectively, this means you will have 12 such combinations. This would help you in deciding between colleges much more easily and you would be able to ignore surprises like Instrumentation or Metallurgy coming your way, he explains. Though colleges matter a lot, unless you are in a branch, which has larger employment potential you may not be picked up by employers. So the branch matters.

In selecting a branch your first priority must be your interest (view box for the type of questions to ask before selecting a branch). However, Ashwin Kumar a BE pass-out from CSMV University has a different opinion. According to him barring a few students, most do not have very defined preferences when they appear for Engineering. So he says, it makes sense to have only negative preferences, that is, branches you will not take. Then assess the branch that opens up maximum possible jobs, he says. According to him Mechanical fits the bill because a range of companies including public sector look for them and next to circuit branches, even for IT companies (the largest recruiters in campus) it is the most preferred branch. Sonali Kanal, a student of the same college has a different take. She would go by personal preferences. She is pursuing her third year Instrumentation and has already earned a pre-placement offer from GE-Medical. So the verdict is split. Interest is the prime concern. But if you are not too particular, then go for a branch which opens up opportunities.


Freezing your college
This is the prime difference, the assertion in the voice of Rohan, a student of IIIT, Hyderabad is quite evident. A good college changes the way you study, the peer group is different, and the quality of placements is much better, is his conclusion. All the arguments are valid says Harish Iyer, a PhD scholar at IIT Madras, but only for the top 50- 60 colleges in the country. According to him as one moves beyond the top 100 colleges, there is very little to differentiate other than their infrastructure, location, some tie-ups and the effectiveness of their PR. And most of them, according to him are hunting grounds only for those IT services companies which have massive manpower requirements.

So according to Harish, college would take precedence over the branch, only if you are discussing the top 50-60 colleges. As one goes down the pecking order a good branch would stand you in good stead, because after all the college is useful only until you get your first job. Then on, a student is on their own.  So do research about your college in detail. See the number of labs, quality of faculty, the kind of companies that visit their campus and so on (view box above to when creating your assessment chart). Careers360 has done an extensive review of colleges based on these parameters and has rated 935 colleges this year. see how your preferred list of colleges have fared. We have rated colleges from AAA+ to A with A indicating acceptable level of standards and AAA+ indicating exceptional standards.

CIRCUIT BRANCHES are ever green placement favourites especially with IT companies We outline four main factors and the weightage to be allotted to each when making a decision Quality of placements: 40% marks Two issues have to be kept in mind when you look at placements - numbers and the type of companies that recruit the bulk of students. First, identify the average percentage of placements across different branches by looking at the Mandatory Disclosures (downloadable from site). If the list of companies and the number of offers are given, it is a good sign. See the percentage of students placed across branches. Since the biggest recruiters are IT companies, and since they recruit from circuit branches (ECE, EEE, IT,CSE) branch-wise placement record is quite essential. Quality of Infrastructure: 20% marks Do not go by buildings and land holdings. They are the easiest to acquire. How good are labs in the discipline of your choice? Do they have modern equipment and in enough numbers? How many books per student are there in the library? What e-journals do they subscribe to? How much bandwidth on a per capita basis do they have? These are difficult questions that can get answers from the website alone. Quality of faculty: 20% marks This is impossible to assess correctly for any young student. But be on the lookout for years of experience of the faculty. Verify if a sizable section of the faculty has less than three to five years of experience; they would be rookies with no teaching experience. The more the number of faculty in the team between 10-20 years, the better would be the quality. This is only a ballpark measure so take it as such. Speak with your seniors to see if the quality of faculty is good. Quality industry interface: 20% Look for tie-ups with industry, like the Microsoft Research Centre, IBM Research Centre or Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) core. See if the institute has a tech park.  Find out whether it has received funding from external agencies for research. If a school in your assessment scores less than 35% overall, and if you still join it, because you just have to do a BE/B.Tech, then go with the realization that it will be a hard grind in your life after education.