Re-discovery of India-Part II: 2012 - A year of “short term“ turbulence or “long term” turnaround?

There have been many queries on my previous blog titled “ Re-discovery of India”. The questions vary from long term implications of this trend to the branch wise distribution of closing ranks. There were specific queries on whether any specific branch was being preferred or not.

I tried to dig more into IIT JEE data from previous years to get these answers. The current analysis is specific to IIT JEE only.

I found that the year 2012 has been the most disruptive year, as far as choices of branches are concerned. It is not clear if this disruption will transform into a turnaround for years to come or will only be a local turbulence for this year.

The following table lists down closing ranks for major branches from IITs for the last four years.

(Closing ranks for a particular branch have been averaged across identified IITs for that year. There could be loss of some micro level local factors but trends, in general remain same)

 Following observations can be deduced from the table:

·         Computer science has gained a lot this year and is clearly racing ahead.

·     Mechanical and EE+ are holding onto the positive trend.

·         Civil and Engg. Physics have been affected marginally. It would be interesting to watch their trend in coming years.

·         There is a dip in demand this year for Metallurgy+, Aerospace, Biotech+ and Naval Architecture.

·         Civil engineering had been moving up slowly but steadily till last year, but this year it has been swayed away by a upswing in the demand of Computer Science. The same has been the case with Chemical and Metallurgy.

What does this mean?

It appears that candidates are turning away from branches which have less employability and have less growth opportunities in India.  They prefer to go for employable branches in BITS, NITs, IIIT and other institutions. This also shows lack of interest by candidates into higher studies in India. The change is very disturbing this year and this widens the gap between the different branches in IIT. I do believe that this trend would be there in other engineering institutions but with a different magnitude. IITs would need to take a note of it, before it is too late.

Are the IITs doing anything wrong?

Not really. IITs are imparting quality education on various engineering disciplines needed for the growth of the country. Government and Industry have not kept pace to provide ample opportunities in India for all round industrial growth. This has resulted in skewed growth heavily dependent on IT sector. The industrial growth in other sectors have been sluggish. The essential ingredients of all-round Industrial growth like good governance, industrial climate, infrastructure, law and order etc. have been lacking in most parts of the country.

A number of students used to take admission in IITs to get brand value for higher education and employment abroad. The actual undergraduate branch did not matter much. Recent trends suggest that number of applicants for student visas abroad have been slowing down from India. This is mostly related to return on investment through foreign study, which has come down due to growth of IT sector in India. But this in turn has affected “Non-IT” branches, that have always been more closely linked with R & D/higher studies abroad. Students now do not prefer these branches in IITs, it appears.

What can the IITs do?

The flexibilities in course choice/change have worked well to lower the entry barrier for admissions. Students would hesitate to lock their choices for discipline of lower preferences, but if institutes offer flexibilities and provide opportunities for wider choice later, it might work well.

IITians  have been the most sought-after creatures by the industries. Industries have been vying for campus interviews and IITs are not required to do much to attract industries. This has not worked well for branches which have lower in-take by Financial and IT companies. Even if there are good “Non –IT sector” MNCs coming to IITs, the students are more keen on lucrative Bank & IT sector jobs due to higher ROI (Return on investment).

Besides having closer industry relationship, IITs should also be more actively involved in entrepreneurship opportunities for their students in Indian industries. Indian industries have been growing mostly on off-shoring of IT jobs, while new product designs/innovations have been low. This area is a strength of IITs and they could lead the industry.

But, why should IIT care about drop in closing ranks?

Very valid point. How does it matter if closing ranks are dropping down? IITs have already supposedly taken care that all its seats are filled, through multiple rounds of counseling and also by announcing a larger list of qualifying candidates (more than double of what it can accommodate). This means that most of its seats should have been occupied and this gives opportunities to lower ranked, but genuinely interested, students to get admission into IITs. Though, it is not established if these measures have helped to reduce number of vacant seats in IITs, which stood at a whopping 8% couple of years back.  But if it has, drop in closing ranks can well be justified.

On the contrary, if it is not the case,  there are couple of points to ponder over

·         Large number of vacant seats are not only criminal waste but it deprives deserving candidates their due. There have been many ways these seats can be filled more judiciously. Please refer  to the blog for more details - http://dsanghi.blogspot.in/2011/06/high-court-directs-jee-to-find-ways-to.html

·         IITs have gained reputation primarily due to the fact that top brains join the institute and this gives IITs a solid edge over others. It is known by quality of its students, though other factors such as faculty, infrastructure, placements etc. cannot be ignored. Therefore, any dilution on this front could have long term impact.

The merging of competitive examinations, without proper analysis, will further complicate it and pose greater challenge for IITs.

Re-discovery of India: Through engineering entrance exams 2012

Most of the counsellings are approaching final phase. IIT counselling is over, while AIEEE, BITS and IIIT-Hyderabad have completed 2 to 3 rounds. These national level entrance exams and admission processes are about two to three months of rigorous exercise for engineering aspirants across the country. The career paths of the candidates are debated and decided by teachers, parents and many others. Few thousands (if not lakhs) of brilliant young Indians not only decide their future but take a step forward towards building of the nation.
In this blog, I have highlighted a few trends emanating from the data collected from few national level admission processes (read counselling). Please note that these processes are not yet complete but signals/trends emerging are significant.
IIT JEE 2012
Let me cover few salient points from IIT JEE 2012 counselling, which just got completed:

• IITs remains the most sought after institutions of the country for engineering aspirants. Only handful of candidates decide to leave the IIT dream from the top half.
• Overall average change in closing ranks through IIT JEE 2012, as compared to IIT JEE 2011, have been noticeable. The closing ranks have dropped by about an average of 200 ranks per course this year. (This means that each course in IITs have, on the average dropped by 200 ranks as compared to last year).
• The drop in closing ranks have been pretty uniform across all the IITs/ISM, except Hyderabad and Ropar. Either Hyderabad or Ropar have been doing something distinctively different, or it is the result of their proximity to two major IIT coaching centers (Hyderabad and Kota). The chances of former are remote.
• IIT Indore and IIT-BHU have been able to maintain their closing ranks to previous year’s level with marginal drop.
• The trends in terms of regional affiliation of the IIT aspirants can be observed from the data below. All the IITs/ISM have been grouped into four regions and average closing ranks drop as compared to previous year have been tabulated :

Table 1:

IIT Region	AVG Change in Closing ranks (-means drop)
North	-109
West	-172
East	-237
South	-309

Note: 1. Varanasi has not been included to avoid bias due to its re-christening. Hyderabad has been covered separately.
Note: 2.Only general category ranks have been considered for comparison.

• Despite uniform decline in the closing ranks, there are two distinct groups. North and West regions have shown less decline while South and East have been more affected. The charm of IIT continues to attract more candidates from the north and west.
• This data can be directly corroborated from the available information on number of candidates selected for IIT JEE 2012 from each state (upto 18k rank). If one consolidates this data region wise, the following picture emerges.

Table 2:

Region (number of states)	Selected in IIT	Unit
North (8)	31.7	%
West (4)	31.9	%
East (6)	12.8	%
South (3)	5.0	%
Andhra Pradesh	17.7	%
Source:jee.sdslabs.co

• Andhra Pradesh/Hyderabad stands out and defies the trend in other southern states. Therefore it has been tabulated separately.
• It is evident that location based preferences dominate in terms of choosing the IIT. This is in line with my previous blog http://alwaysaheadblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/iit-jee-2012-counselling-a-snapshot/

AIEEE 2012
AIEEE 2012 counseling is currently midway and three rounds of counseling have been completed. Though, any analysis cannot be final unless all rounds have been completed, inferences can be drawn through trends emerging so far. If one does apple to apple comparison of AIEEE 2012 (3^rd round) against AIEEE 2011 (3^rd round), there are some visible differences in terms of closing ranks.
For the sake of simplicity, I have taken representative sets of NITs from all the regions uniformly. At least 2 to 3 NITs have been taken randomly from each region and only general category All India Ranks (other than home state) have been considered in the analysis.
There are few observations:

• There is an overall improvement of closing ranks of this representative sets of NITs from across the country. On average, there is an increase of 212 ranks per course, when compared to last year at the end of round 3.
• The same information, when categorized region wise, throws up following table:

Table 3:

Region	AVG change in closing ranks (- means drop)
North	-74
West	-1111
East	388
South	268
Northeast	1150

• This table is in direct contrast with Table 1 (for IITs); the southern and eastern states are more tuned to regional engineering colleges.
• Southern states (except AP) show preference to local engineering colleges. Few possible reasons:
  • The growth of IT sector has opened up enormous employment opportunities for budding engineers from local colleges (both government and private) in the South.
  • There are reputed engineering colleges in South with good infrastructure and great placement records.

The additional stretch and hard work required for IIT preparation is, therefore avoided in this region, or so it appears.

• The North and West continue to show more passion for IIT JEE and drop in closing ranks in AIEEE can possibly be attributed to the fact that candidates from these regions prefer to re-appear in IIT JEE.
• A note on Northeast: From the data it appears that there is more inclination towards engineering from this region than previous years. The other reason could be that candidates from across the country do not hesitate to take admissions here. Both these trends, if true, are very encouraging.

Private Engineering colleges:
I have been following trends in few private engineering institutions as well. BITSAT 2012, IIIT-Hyderabad and DTU(DCE) are few of them, which I have followed. All of these have shown improvement in closing ranks as compared to previous years. BITSAT 2012 (2^nd round) closing marks are significantly higher than previous years closing marks at the end of second round. The same is the case with IIIT-Hyderabad. IIIT-H is possibly one of the very few institutions which admits few more candidates (overbook) than sanctioned seats, in anticipation that few of the candidates will leave. This avoids the pains of multiple rounds of counseling, waitlist etc. IIIT-H claims to have overbooked most of its courses in first few rounds itself and there is significant improvement in closing ranks (which is based on AIEEE ranks) this year.
What would happen in 2013?
Government is contemplating merging AIEEE and IIT JEE examination from next year. This combined exam would have a debatable process to screen candidates and select candidates for IIT and AIEEE along with few other government institutions.
It is true that IIT JEE has its own format and tests candidates on their academic excellence in great depth – both at conceptual level and application level. It can be certainly debated if this format needs any change or not, but IITs have been conducting the tests, have been successful in attracting top talent and have been imparting quality education. On the other hand, AIEEE is the exam with largest number of candidates appearing for reputed institutions (NITs/IIITs etc.) all across the country.
The manner in which these two examination are being clubbed and proposed for year 2013, AIEEE would end up as a second cousin of IIT JEE. If one observes the data above, AIEEE has its own place and can not be treated as secondary to IIT JEE in large part of the country. In fact, it is the big brother.
On the whole, it can be noted that:

1. IITs continue to lead as the most preferred place for engineering aspirants. However, There are many other good institutions which continue to attract the best talent from across the country and improvement in their closing ranks, in general only go on to show their increasing influence.
2. A number of lower rank IIT qualified candidates do prefer to leave IITs for their other preferences, e.g. location, course etc. Career consciousness is bound to affect these decisions in this world of information technology. Employability vs. Brand plays a role in this process.
3. Hyderabad (AP) is emerging (if not already) as one of the major knowledge hubs of the country. It has attracted the best of institutions (IIT, BITS, IIIT…) and best from the IT industry (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM etc.) to its fold.
4. Social, regional and economic preferences play a role in terms of preparation, participation and choice of national engineering examination/institutions. These preferences do not suit “One nation, one exam” theory.

In my opinion, “having multiple entrance examinations” is similar to the multi-party system in Indian democracy. If one wants to impose a two party system (like in USA), it may not work well for this country. National parties and regional parties both, play a role in the development of the country as well as in meeting the aspirations of its citizens. It is not a matter of convenience, but what is best for the sake of imparting quality education –which I think is more important.
- Sandeep
14th July 2012

Sources: jee.iitd.ac.in; jee.sdslabs.co; ccb.nic.in; www.bitsadmission.com; www.iiit.ac.in; dtuadmissions.nic.in

IIT JEE 2012: Trends in course allotment

After giving your best in IIT JEE, most of you must be anxiously waiting for the final round of course allotment. I come across lot of questions “ My IIT JEE 2012 AIR is XXXX, will I get YYY branch in ZZZ location?”, “My course allotment has not changed in second round. Why?”, “I have got XXX branch, will I get another branch in same location?”,” I have got a branch of my choice, can I freeze it?”, “ Are closing rank going to improve this year?”.
Though you may not get all the answers here, but I am sure you will be better informed and prepared to face the subsequent rounds.
Some of the significant trends in IIT JEE 2012 allotment at end of second round as compared to previous year (IIT JEE 2011):

1. Last year (IIT JEE 2011), more than 600 candidates, who did not get any seat at the end of first round, managed to get seats in second round. This year, this number stands at little more than 400. There is about 33% decline. This trend can be attributed to couple of factors, in my opinion. First, IIT JEE 2012 allows candidates to withdraw their seat by July 3^rd, 2012. This will make them eligible for IIT JEE 2013 and they will get registration fees refund (after minor deduction). This is a change from previous year and seems to have played a role. Second, there have been confusion about the format of IIT JEE 2013. Candidates want to play safe and want to hold on. It could be combination of both and/or some other factors. If first factor is predominant one, one should see more new seat allotments in third round. (Last year, more than 300 candidates, who did not get any seat in first two rounds, got a seat at the end of third round).
2. Closing ranks: Location wise: There is an interesting observation on this front, though it is too early to compare closing ranks as final round is not yet over. If we classify IITs into two buckets: Major IITs -(Bombay, Delhi, Roorkee, Kanpur, KGP, Madras, GUW, Varanasi) and New IITs (Rest except ISM), the trends are more distinct. Closing ranks have declined across most of the major IITs except IIT-BHU. IIT BHU has been a major gainer (due to obvious reasons), while Roorkee and GUW have held on the previous year (might decline after final round). However, decline of closing ranks across most major IITs have been observed. There appears to be a trend that most of new IITs are gaining acceptance and have “marginally” improved their closing ranks at this point. Ropar and Indore stand out from others.
3. Closing ranks: Branch wise: At the end of second round, pure science disciplines (Math, Physics, Chemistry) have shown improvement in their closing ranks showing greater acceptability. Apparently, introduction of B.S. courses (in place of M.Sc. Int.) in some of IITs have started to pay off. Engineering streams seems to show decline in closing ranks in general. Metallurgy, Aeronautics, Chemical Engg., Biotech and Naval Architecture have shown downward trend in term of popularity if one goes by closing ranks. Computer Science, as always is popular and shown improvement this year as well. Surprisingly, Architecture seems to be bouncing back.
4. Location wise preference seems to be more distinctly evident from the data of IIT JEE 2012. Therefore, branch wise changes in closing ranks may be modulated by location preferences and one should be careful in analyzing it with only single dimension. Overall, there could be decline in closing ranks at the end of final round as compared to previous year and it would be best to analyse more after final round is over.
5. I have not included ISM, Dhanbad in this analysis. There is no intended bias but the changes in trends of ISM are very volatile in first two rounds and it is expected to continue. Therefore, it would be best to wait for the final round.

This analysis is based on publicly available data and all attempts have been made to be accurate and unbiased. However, any inadvertent error or unintended bias can not be ruled out. Therefore you are advised to plan your career/take your decisions based on your discretion and convenience.
I plan to compare first two rounds of IIT JEE 2012 course allotment next time. Stay tuned- stay ahead, always…
-Sandeep
(Originally published in alwaysaheadblog.wordpress.com in June 2012.)