BITS - Experience of a lifetime.

I have been privileged to be a part of this great institution. Academics, Events, Sports and the overall journey has been really wonderful. BITSians are always acknowledged in corporate world and it helps a lot. The people I met there were awesome and its hard to find people like them again. All the best wishes to BITS.

I got admission through state board topper quota. Scored 96% in M.P. Board HSSC - 2006. I was not aware of BITS Pilani's admission process and it was intimated to me by my cousin, who sent the forms to me by post. During all this, I was in Kota, preparing for JEE. Just before a year, BITS had stated their entrance - BITSAT and reduced the seats to merit holders to 1 per board (before 2005, all the admissions were based on HSSC merit lists from various boards).

The courses start with basic elementary stuff in 1st year and evolve exponentially over the next 3 or 4 years (depending on which degree you are pursuing). Apart from the core subjects, students can also opt for wide range of elective course. You can study the courses even when you didn't get it as a core stream.

Yes, there are tie ups with a lot of major MNCs and industry giants who invite Bitsians for internships. There are 2 internships, which are call practice school - 1 (2 months - at the end of 2nd year) and practice school - 2 (6 months - final year). The internships are awarded based on CGPA and choice filling. Generally the stipend varies between 10K - 30K for CSE/EEE students in PS2. for PS1 - the stipend are low or may not be a part of internship in some cases.

Placements have always been good and almost entire batch gets placed by the end of placement season. However the distribution is quite uneven. Most of the companies come to hire CSE grads & Post Grads. I can recall following companies visited when I was around : Wipro - 8L, TCS - 3L, EnterpriseOne - 3.75L, Yahoo - 7L, DeShaw - 12L, Mocrosoft - 11L, NetApp - NA, Juniper Networks - NA, Sterlite Tech - 3.5L, Map My India - 3.5L, Nagarro - 4L.

All forms of festivals are celebrated in BITS : APOGEE - Annual Technical Projects Festival, BOSM - BITS Open Sports Meet, OASIS - Annual Custural Festival, The participation is humongous. Almost all top tier colleges send their participants in these events. Also BITS garner huge sponsorship for events coverage. They have had Shankar Ehsas Loy, Lucky Ali, VJ Bani, V TV, Euphoria, KK and several other notified celebrities graced these occasions.

During 2006 - 2010 the fee structure was quite feasible. Per semester fee was around 35000 and mess + other expenses would not make it more than 50000 per semester - that is 1 Lac/yr. This would have been super feasible today, but as far as I know, it has went upto 2.5 - 3 lacs/yr. Of course this raise is due to better infrastructure and facilities post - 2010. (Pilani campus was renovated few years back).

Yes BITS does provide scholarships : Scholarships and Fee Concessions for Integrated First Degree programmes - Board toppers - 1st, 2nd & 3rd place holders get 100%, 75% & 50% of the first semester tuition fee respectively for the first semester. Merit in BITSAT - S. No. BITSAT Score Scholarship - Marks 300 75% of Tuition Fee 250 to 299 50% of Tuition Fee 200 to 249 25% of Tuition Fee scholarships and Fee Concessions for Higher Degree programmes.

Campus Life - gender Ratio - 90:10 . Female ratios has been always on the lower side Diversity - Since the advent of BITSAT, the entrance has been purely on BITSAT performance basis (30+ seats are reserved for Board Toppers). Hence its always a good mix of talents from across India.

Hostels were decent with good amenities. Hot water availability, Dhobi, sports complex and gym, library, medical assitance, Mess, night canteens and campus are all interconnected. I have heard that after the renovation, the facilities have really improved. Mess food was average. There are always adjacent canteens and food zone, where you can find awesome food.

BITS Pilani Alma Connect - is a strong network of BITS alumni. The network has always been a great support of BITSians. This network is now connecting over 10000 BITS Alumni, which is a great achievement. There are huge career opportunities in this network.

The exams structured was divided into 2 parts : Surprise tests - 50 minute tests during classroom sessions for any course. This would add up in the final grading. These were the tests which scared the student the most, as you wont have any idea if a test will be conducted on a given day. Generally the test would be on till date covered topics and would be easy compared the comprehensive exams. However the surprise element always scared the students. Comprehensive exams, would be conducted during 2nd month into the semester, would be conducted during 4th month into the semester comprehensive (or Compre as we called it) - conducted at the end of semester - 1st week of 5th month so yes, the exam/test structure was a bit hectic, as you would always be looking towards test 1 or test 2 series (which are comprehensive in themselves). If not, then the surprise tests are always there to haunt you.

I was not aware of BITS Pilani's admission process and it was intimated to me by my cousin, who sent the forms to me by post. During all this, I was in Kota, preparing for JEE. Just before a year, BITS had stated their entrance - BITSAT and reduced the seats to merit holders to 1 per board (before 2005, all the admissions were based on HSSC merit lists from various boards). The form filling and subsequently fee submission through demand draft were the norms those days. Entire process was smooth and I did not face nay challenge in it. The day of admission/registration was in 1st week of august 2006. I visited the campus with my father, uncle and cousin.

There are all varieties - Pro, Good, Average & Poor. However I would say on average the quality is quite superior in most of the courses. Some of the profs are highly experts in their subjects - Sudipt Mohan, Shaan B, Rahul Banerjee to name a few, while you can see some of them struggle miserably - Navin Goyal (database), Poonam Goyal (data structures). Overall - classrooms are filled with knowledge.