Indian Institute of Technology, or IIT as it is commonly known, is a group of autonomous Institutes of higher education. They are the most sought after institutes in India, especially at undergraduate level. Every year, millions of students attempt JEE, out of which only 2% are selected into IITs. In comparison, Harvard has an acceptance rate of 10%, making IIT-JEE the toughest entrance exam in the world.
IITs have the best facilities for engineering and technical education in the country and are recognized as the centre of excellence across the world. With JEE Main 2018 online application forms out, the process for admissions to IITs, NITs, IIITs and GFTIs has begun. If you plan on pursuing your Engineering or Technology education from the top universities, you should fill the application form as soon as possible.
However, for admission to IITs and NITs, candidates have to qualify JEE Advanced. Candidates who qualify JEE Main are eligible to appear for JEE Advanced. Application process for JEE Advanced 2018 will begin in the last week of May, 2018.
After qualifying both JEE Main and Advanced, there will be a plethora of colleges and Universities to choose from. Needless to say, IITs would be any candidate’s first pick. But which IIT will it be?
Every publication has different parameters on which they rank an institute. In order to provide a standard ranking, the NIRF or National Institutional Ranking Framework for domestic ranking and QS World University Rankings (By Subject) for International rankings has been taken as reference points. Candidates are advised to understand the parameters used to assess their choices.
National Institutional Ranking Framework
National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) outlines the methodology to rank institutions across the country. There are mainly five categories on which NIRF ranks all the colleges and universities.
Teaching, Learning and Resources
This is the first category. This includes various parameters such as the total strength, student-faculty ratio (emphasis on permanent faculty), combined metric for faculty with PhD (or equivalent) and experience, total budget and its utilisation.
Research and Professional Practice
This category consists of combined metric for publications, quality of publications and patents: filed, published, granted and licensed, footprint of projects and professional practice and executive development programs.
Graduation Outcomes
This category takes into consideration the combined percent for placement, higher studies, and entrepreneurship, metric for university examinations, median salary, and metric for graduating students admitted into top universities, metric for number of PhD students graduated.
Outreach and Inclusivity
This category consists of number of students from different states, otherwise known as regional diversity, percentage of women in campus, the total number of economically and socially challenged students, and facilities for physically challenged students.
Perception
Peer perception: employers and research investors, peer perception: academics, public perception, and competitiveness are taken into consideration and calculations.
Considering all these factors, NIRF has ranked the 12 IITs in order of preference, that is:
- IIT Madras (with rank 1st all over India)
- Bombay (ranked 2nd)
- Kharagpur (ranked 3rd)
- Delhi (ranked 4th)
- Kanpur (ranked 5th)
- Roorkee (ranked 6th)
- Guwahati (ranked 7th)
- Hyderabad (ranked 10th)
- Tiruchirappalli (ranked 11th)
- Rourkela (ranked 12th)
QS World University Rankings
QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), published 2009 onwards. The different criteria used to determine the QS University Rankings are discussed below.
Academic Reputation
This is assessed using data from the large global survey of academics conducted by QS each year. This category holds a 30% weightage over the total ranking.
Employer Reputation
This is determined using the results of a major international survey (preferably, of graduate employers) who are asked to identify the universities they perceive as producing the highest-quality graduates. This category has a 20% weightage over the final rank.
Faculty/Student Ratio
This indicator assesses the ratio of full-time academic staff members employed per student enrolled. The aim is to get an idea of the contact time and academic support students at the institution can expect to receive from their teachers. This category gets 15% weightage.
Citations per Paper and Papers per Faculty
These two indicators are both assessed using data from the Scopus database of research publications and citations. They have a weightage of 10% and 10% for citations and faculty papers.
Staff with a PhD
A new indicator introduced to the QS University Rankings for 2016, the purpose of this is to assess the proportion of academic staff members qualified up to a PhD level. This complements the student/faculty ratio indicator, both aiming to provide proxy measures of an institution’s commitment to high-quality teaching. This holds a 5% towards the final rank.
Proportion of international faculty, international students, inbound exchange students, and outbound exchange students
These last four indicators in the QS World University Rankings are used to determine the proportion of international staff and students at the university, how many international students are visiting, how many are leaving, studying etc. They can be used to determine the global standings in desirability by students and/or faculty members. They have 2.5% weightage each.
QS World University Rankings for International rankings (in Engineering and Technology) for IITs are as follows
- Delhi (71st rank)
- Bombay (78th rank)
- Madras (110th rank)
- Kanpur (129th rank)
- Kharagpur (150th rank)
- Roorkee (231st rank)
- Guwahati (332nd rank)
- Hyderabad (unavailable)
- Tiruchirappalli (unavailable)
- Rourkela (unavailable)
IIT Bombay ranks higher than Delhi in the domestic rankings, while according to international ranking, IIT Delhi is ahead of IIT Bombay; at 71 against the former’s 78th rank. Also, while IIT Madras is at the top in domestic rankings, international ranking declares IIT Delhi the best IIT in the country. There is quite a large disparity in the rankings by both these standards. Some experts argue that this is due to the parameters considered, which vary for both and are the cause of the wide fluctuations. We have already discussed the parameters for both the ranking standards, which would make understanding this a lot easier.
