IIT-Bombay gets cream of students this year too

YogitaRao and Toyoja Upadhyay
Mumbai: IIT-Bombay got the cream of students this year too, with 67 of the top 100 rankers choosing the Powai campus to pursue their BTech degree. Last year, it was 65.
IIT-Delhi retained its second position among the top choices of students, but toppers choosing the institute dropped from 30 to 28 this year. The remaining five candidates have chosen IIT-Madras.IIT-Kanpur, which usually gets two to three students from the top 100 ranks, was not the top preference for any of the 100 toppers this year. The Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) released the results of the first round of allotment of seats in IITs, NITs and other centrally-funded technological institutes on Thursday.
IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi though are the top choices of students with higher ranks, courses in IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Madras have received more applications from the 33,500 students who registered for admissions this year. Each of the 1,341 seats at IIT-Kharagpur got 224 applications, while there were 221 contenders for each seat at Chennai. The contenders for every seat at IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay were 190 and 161 respectively. Though the first round of allotment was over on Tuesday, the overall number of choices filled by students paint a different picture in comparison to the trend noticed among the top 1,000 ranks.
In the top 500 ranks, IIT-Kanpur was allotted to 56 students, a drop from last year’s 75. Newer institutes like IIT-Hyderabad and Gandhinagar too got two and one student respectively from the top 500 ranks. Of the top 100 ranks, 37 students belonged to the IIT-Bombay zone, and therefore the institute was an obvious choice for them. But the IIT-Madras zone, which had 30 students in the top 100 ranks, seemed to have chosen IIT-B too, as only five opted for the former.
The opening and closing ranks for computer science and engineering (CSE) at IIT-Bombay was 1 and 60 respectively, indicating that most in the top 60 ranks have chosen the programme. At IIT-Delhi the allotment in the CSE programme started at 24 and closed at 111 rank. Admission to the electrical engineering programme in IIT-Bombay opened at rank 9 and closed at 240. CSE was among the most popular choices at IIT-B and IIT-D, followed by electrical, mechanical and engineering physics. CSE, electrical, mechanical and civil engineering are the most popular among all IITs put together.
JEE (Advanced) organising chairman K V Krishna said students usually go by the previous year’s statistics while filling their choices, therefore there is hardly any change in admission trends. “Looking at the previous years’ trends gives them an idea about the process and cut-offs. But there could be a disadvantage as students tend to pick up courses and institutes that their seniors have chosen, rather than making their own choice,” said the chairman.
Dimple Kochar, the girl topper from Mumbai, said IIT-Bombay was her first choice as it is close to home. It is an added bonus that the institute offers the best faculty in these very spheres, she said. Preey Shah, the Mumbai topper, said, “I love Mathematics and that was a major driving force when it came to choosing what course to study.” K Bala Sriram, another Mumbai topper, said, “I chose the Powai campus as it is popular among the rest.”
IIT-Roorkee director Pradipta Banerji said, “Students follow the herd. There is no logic behind choosing an institute or course. I would understand if candidates are selective for research, but at the undergraduate level all the top 15 IITs offer good quality education. Even during placements, students are picked by top firms irrespective of their institutes.” He added, “Previously, IIT-Kanpur was popular, then the trend changed. But in those days, there was a reason such as faculty and research.”