Indian Education System

[Raja Bose]

Ok let me point out a few things...

It's obviously some way off from being Olympiad standards - but can't think of any other test that would be closer. Aren't most Olympiad participants from India also IITians ?

If by Olympiad participants you mean the ones who go to IMO camp (or to IMO) & similar for Fizzyics Olympiad, that is an extremely small set of genius level kids (you are talking of a few 10s of kids in a country of 1 billion+). The question is not whether bright kids get into IIT for UG but rather whether the right kind of bright kids are getting in - by right kind I mean ones who can make fundamental contributions to their area of study. For that one needs to look at the average quality of intake, not the top 1%.

Also, if GRE is the global standard for PG admissions - you would probably find IITians being the topmost of the heap when it comes to GRE performance...don't know if things have changed substantially but this used to be pretty much true in my times.

3. If you say IIT type talent is not what you look for in research - several questions follow. Would you also say GRE talent is not what you look for? Can the type of talent you look for even be quantified by some standard test ?

Again it is a major misconception especially amongst us SDREs that GRE is some test of excellence (remember my takleef with exams being seen as an end-all-be-all in India?). GRE merely serves as a threshold in the admission process, nothing more. At least back in my days it was common for folks to brag about their GRE score and how becoz they got 2400 they would only apply to Harvard and MIT without realizing that the chances of their admission was not really based on that score (leave alone any scholarship). So, no it is not a test of talent or research aptitude and is used only as a basic filter (BTW I am including subject GRE here too, not just the vanilla GRE which is just english and basic maths).

Your bolded question is exactly correct - no it cannot. That is why an good institution (including Ivy League) looks beyond any single test or exam scores and evaluates a potential student on qualitative grounds too - whether it is SOP, interview, hosting the brighter prospects & checking them out f2f etc. I don't think JEE is equipped to do that by a long shot since it is just 1 exam - I had posted about that on this thread iirc many moons ago.

Why do admissions for US PG consider the IITs more favorably than any other Indian or many other global institutions for scholarship? Don't you agree that they would be best qualified to judge what metrics work at their institutes?

Having been involved in the process recently, I can say that they don't. When the whole brand IIT stuff gained a lot of press and traction mainly due to efforts of IIT alumni and TIE in massa ~10 years back, there was a good marketing effect which percolated into the university admissions offices all over massa. That effect has since waned for whatever reason. What IIT has is a good alumni network in massa universities which may provide more favourable treatment (& greater access figuring out how to best present one's app/inside intel on scholarships etc) to IIT UGs in some cases and a major reason for that is becoz back in the 60s - 80s, IITians were pretty much the only ones in India who were aware of foreign study options for engineering and had the necessary access and info to study abroad (again a big reason for this is the involvement of US/UK/Russia in setting up the various IITs including supplying faculty members who taught the students).

If you believe strongly in other types of talent, why not create another institution that admits based on such a test - and let the market, ie Recruiters and PG admissions folks decide which is better ? That's precisely what Rajat Gupta (Oops, guess he's persona non-grata now) and others did when they created ISB to compete with IIMs.

One has to do both but that doesn't mean the IITs get to maintain status quo especially if they want to enjoy the status of flagship educational institutions & centers of excellence in engineering - that too tax payer funded. Do you know of any university which claims itself as a flagship institution solely on the basis of churning out UGs?? And the quality of research or laying the foundation for innovation cannot be solely decided by commercial market forces. Otherwise you will get exactly the same thing as the state of the IT industry in India today - all focus is on short-term income with zero focus on long-term value addition and building IP.

[Arjun]

Having been involved in the process recently, I can say that they don't. When the whole brand IIT stuff gained a lot of press and traction mainly due to efforts of IIT alumni and TIE in massa ~10 years back, there was a good marketing effect which percolated into the university admissions offices all over massa. That effect has since waned for whatever reason.

I think a good metric for quantifying this would be to look at annual admissions by the Ivy League to students from India for PG, and what percentage of this is from the IITs. Or compare intake of IITians to those from other institutes in India or globally. If anybody has any guesstimates or actual figures - that would be illuminating.

One has to do both but that doesn't mean the IITs get to maintain status quo especially if they want to enjoy the status of flagship educational institutions & centers of excellence in engineering - that too tax payer funded. Do you know of any university which claims itself as a flagship institution solely on the basis of churning out UGs?? And the quality of research or laying the foundation for innovation cannot be solely decided by commercial market forces. Otherwise you will get exactly the same thing as the state of the IT industry in India today - all focus is on short-term income with zero focus on long-term value addition and building IP.

Like I have stated before, research /PG / Faculty is a totally separate issue and I am completely with you that needs to be significantly strengthened. But that has no bearing on the JEE. Also, you are stating that it would be difficult to structure a single test that truly reflects research potential, especially at UG level - so don't know that there is much that can be done differently.

Whole-heardtedly agree with your sentiments to improve research standards otherwise - but lets delink that discussion from JEE.

[kasthuri]

Also, you are stating that it would be difficult to structure a single test that truly reflects research potential, especially at UG level - so don't know that there is much that can be done differently.

Arjun ji, as you suggest, I think the problem of undergraduate education and research is *not* mutually exclusive. After all, it is the same faculty who do both. The solution is multi-dimensional. Basically, the 'mystique' brand of IIT's has to come down. Once the pressure comes down, we have lot more thinking space. To accomplish this, lots of things can be done - have to start from high schools and colleges. Like Raja Bose ji/Singha ji suggets above, undergrad science and arts colleges needs to strengthened. Most often good students attend these colleges dejected having dropped out of JEE and other entrances. This culture needs to change. One way to do this is to give incentives to students in the form of campus jobs. Another good reason why people flock to massa is because of ta/ra's. 10 years back one can earn almost the same in the massa schools as much as joining a job after the degree there. Therefore, it goes without saying for masters degree in these colleges, there needs to be some form of assistantship. We need good professors even at the college level. The same rush to start engineering schools should be there to start science schools. This could be done for profit too. Govt. can initiate schemes to encourage such business. Foreign investment is okay - but the same effort can be put to attract good researchers from here. Plenty of solutions are there in this front which will only pave way to remove the 'mystique' brand of IIT's.

[Singha]

maybe in UPA1 era there was a move to convert/start some national level science univs on the funding level of IITs. what became of the proposal?

the evidence of history is that become a world power in engineering, one has to be become a world power in sciences first. nobody has managed to put the cart before the horse yet.

there are many easy examples - our aerospace and engine progs have often encountered the fact the country just does not have the strength in matsci , physics and exotic materials/coatings we need. and NAL/DRDO et al had to do it from scratch in a very time consuming and uneconomic manner.

today we are forced to roam hat in hand before snecma because we dont know how the kind of alloys and coatings needed to survive a bleeding edge engine temperature is made...

[kasthuri]

maybe in UPA1 era there was a move to convert/start some national level science univs on the funding level of IITs. what became of the proposal?

the evidence of history is that become a world power in engineering, one has to be become a world power in sciences first. nobody has managed to put the cart before the horse yet.

there are many easy examples - our aerospace and engine progs have often encountered the fact the country just does not have the strength in matsci , physics and exotic materials/coatings we need. and NAL/DRDO et al had to do it from scratch in a very time consuming and uneconomic manner.

today we are forced to roam hat in hand before snecma because we dont know how the kind of alloys and coatings needed to survive a bleeding edge engine temperature is made...

Ji, there are solutions to help the situation. One of the easiest ways is to provide good funding for desi mango researches (post-dogs) to conduct research in the US with a rider that they should serve India, say six months for every three years. Israel, Denmark and other european countries often do this.
It is an expensive business, but in the interest of the nation, I suppose this can be managed. Don't think this will ever happen.

[RamaY]

RB mullah

Thank you for the great points and insight.

Perhaps we built enought infra-base at UG level with IITs and NITs and various Engg colleges (slowly we are seeing good private engg/medical colleges), so that we can move the value chain to the next level.

Perhaps it is time for and the idea is to (creatively) distruct the brand IIT so we can build a new brand at PG level, taking the national scientific base to next level.

I hear (very little first hand knowledge) that IIT PG programs are only sought by engg graduates from next level universities. So as long as this brand exists, in it's current form, it will be difficult to build them to be the real PG temples?

[nawabs]

A question asked in the entrance exam for M.A.(Pol. Sci.) -
In what way are the secular foundations of the Indian constitution being affected by the 'Ideology of Hindutva'?

[kasthuri]

I hear (very little first hand knowledge) that IIT PG programs are only sought by engg graduates from next level universities. So as long as this brand exists, in it's current form, it will be difficult to build them to be the real PG temples?

I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that it is true. This is not just true of engineering, but sciences as well (of course most IIT's don't have undergrad science stream).

[RamaY]

^ let them ask any questions they want ji...

They ask these questions for two purposes.
1. A feedback mechanism for them so they can prepare counter measures.
2. To filter hindutva fanatics from reaching higher echelons of power.

Long time ago Ramanaji mentioned how the civils exam candidates have to hide their hindutva fascism in order to get inside. Hindutva vadis need to do some Taquiyya here.. That's alll

[Bade]

I hear (very little first hand knowledge) that IIT PG programs are only sought by engg graduates from next level universities. So as long as this brand exists, in it's current form, it will be difficult to build them to be the real PG temples?

I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that it is true. This is not just true of engineering, but sciences as well (of course most IIT's don't have undergrad science stream).

Maybe not the new ones, but the older ones like Kanpur, Kharagpur had an integrated 5-yr MSc program and did take additional students from BSc stream too for the final two years. I hear that more recently like 10+ years now even Mumbai, Madras, Delhi has this 5-yr program though earlier they just had the 2 yr MSc one which was based on a entrance exam conducted separately by each institute followed by an interview/oral examination from the filtered list of the written exam. Nowadays they even have a joint admission test for the 2-yr MSc entrance, but have not kept track of these closely so not entirely sure.

[kasthuri]

Maybe not the new ones, but the older ones like Kanpur, Kharagpur had an integrated 5-yr MSc program and did take additional students from BSc stream too for the final two years. I hear that more recently like 10+ years now even Mumbai, Madras, Delhi has this 5-yr program though earlier they just had the 2 yr MSc one which was based on a entrance exam conducted separately by each institute followed by an interview/oral examination from the filtered list of the written exam. Nowadays they even have a joint admission test for the 2-yr MSc entrance, but have not kept track of these closely so not entirely sure.

I was thinking only IITK's (Kanpur and Karagpur) had the integrated programs. Its a news to me if IITM has it. I know for sure IIT's moved into common entrance test for the science PG's around 2004 or so. You are right, before that it was a separate entrance exam for each institute.

[Bade]

Just checked IIT-M does have a 5 yr MS in Physics now in addition to the BTech Engg Physics offered by the Physics+EE dept. IIT-B always had an Engg Phys for almost 3 decades now (probably the first), and knew many personally who later did PhD in physics. Kanpur physics program was unofficially rated high among the students.

[gakakkad]

olympiads and jee are diametrically opposite exams...while ,it is not uncommon for jee toppers to make it the olympiad ocs camp ,a sizeable fraction of the 50 odd kids don't make it in first 5000 of jee....in my time 2 of the 6 people who represented India did not qualify in the jee mains ...the are doing extremely well presently in physics related fields ...

jee can be cracked by coaching ..if you can slog 5 hours a day for an year ir two ,you ll probably make it within the first 1000 ...gives no indication of your engineering or research potential ..too much devotion to an exam is typically Indian behaviour ...IITs should have more to show off than just the JEEs..

[Vayutuvan]

I hear that more recently like 10+ years now even Mumbai, Madras, Delhi has this 5-yr program though earlier they just had the 2 yr MSc one which was based on a entrance exam conducted separately by each institute followed by an interview/oral examination from the filtered list of the written exam. Nowadays they even have a joint admission test for the 2-yr MSc entrance, but have not kept track of these closely so not entirely sure.

IIT Delhi had a 5 year MSc program as far back as 1975. May be they changed in the interim and came back to this again. IIT B had 5 yr MSc Maths as far back as 1977.

Arjun ji, with all due respect, all this "mystique" and "branding" is marketing babble. I know of a few top-notch people in CS who R2Ied and took up professorial jobs, but got frustrated because they could not find students interested in doing research at IITs (either they were interested in IIMs or going abroad) and R2Ued and working at top notch places here now.

What is required is the ecosystem of RAs/TAs to take the refereeing/lit survey and office hours/grading home works and tests/proctoring load off of professors. Currently the PGs do nothing to earn their stipend (which is quite handsome). They (and even UGs) are molly-coddled other than giving crushing make-work work loads so that they are off the back of the professors. No wonder the research output is zero because they do not have time for creative thinking and explore new areas along with their students. Research requires quite a bit of free time to think through things and take risks and go down various blind alleys before one gets results.

[Saral]

Sanghi's (Dean, IIT-K) open letter to Barua (IIT-G Director) http://dsanghi.blogspot.com/2012/06/jee ... etter.html

[kasthuri]

What is required is the ecosystem of RAs/TAs to take the refereeing/lit survey and office hours/grading home works and tests/proctoring load off of professors. Currently the PGs do nothing to earn their stipend (which is quite handsome). They (and even UGs) are molly-coddled other than giving crushing make-work work loads so that they are off the back of the professors. No wonder the research output is zero because they do not have time for creative thinking and explore new areas along with their students. Research requires quite a bit of free time to think through things and take risks and go down various blind alleys before one gets results.

matrimcji,

Quite honestly, except some good people, the quality of profs at some IIT's science department really suck. This is due to the inbreeding and a bad precedence of sending a set of low grade students from big shots. So the solution cannot be achieved at the student level alone. Inbreeding and favoritism has to stop and the bar for faculties needs to be raised higher.

[SriKumar]

All of what I state applies to the top 1000 or so JEE ranks. There is no doubt that this set represents the best in analytical problem solving in PCM in the country...

Arjunji, this was from your post in the previous page. I agree with other points made there, but was wondering about this. Could you please comment on why you think the cut-off should be around 1000. Even people who comment about the current drop in standards do acknowledge the original 5 IITs and the two thousand or so ranks that they accepted….so, am a bit curious why your cut-off is half that.

In a country where the youth are mostly continually dealing with mediocrity through the full K-12 routine, it is critical for there to be UG Institutes of Excellence for the youth to aim to that are associated with world-beating standards. And admission standards play a fundamental part in setting the standards required for any such institute of excellence. So branding at the UG level is a way to break into the global branded Institutes game that is not expensive - but needs to be followed up with higher investment on the PG and Faculty sides.
….. The IITs are among the handful of Indian equivalents to the Ivy League - and this remains a key factor for many among the topmost tier to stay back for an undergrad in the IITs.

I did not get the thrust of this argument. So the purpose of creating/enhancing IIT brand-name mystique is to hold on to class XII students who are good enough to get direct admits into Ivy League universities? If so, would they not head out after B.Tech anyway seeing that the world-wide brand and mystique of MIT, Harvard and Yale is higher than IITs? NExt, the question could be asked: who benefits from the presence of the said student? IMHO, doing a B.Tech does not imply a contribution to the society- the society is paying for the student’s education and the students job is to study- that is fair. The student’s contribution comes after graduation when s/he is working. Unless the student stays back (unlikely if they can get into Harvard/Yale directly) this does not benefit anyone in any substantative manner- other than the alumni around him who get branded positively by his success. However, I really think this aspect should not be a core concern since, as a percentage of the total student body, this is likely to be a very small group (i.e. those who could directly get into Ivy Leagues for Bachelors directly from India).

Arjunji, I do think we have areas of agreement but I'll add one thing.... the branding, the education and everything else comes at a cost. There is no free lunch, as you well know. I don’t see any analysis from your side that considers the cost of the current status quo. If one focuses exclusively on the benefits of a system and dis-regards the cost (in a cost-benefit analysis), it is quite easy to make a case in favor of any system. BTW, I agree with Rajat Gupta’s setting up of ISBs and not chase IIMs... makes eminent sense. I agree that making IIT a research brand is whole different ball-game and in terms of candidate selection and infrastructure.

[SriKumar]

Just checked IIT-M does have a 5 yr MS in Physics now in addition to the BTech Engg Physics offered by the Physics+EE dept. IIT-B always had an Engg Phys for almost 3 decades now (probably the first), and knew many personally who later did PhD in physics. Kanpur physics program was unofficially rated high among the students.

Trying to recall the past here but did IIT-M not have an integrated M.Sc program, in physics, or math or both, way back? How about statistics? I could have sworn I had seen.....

Ramayji,
Agree with many of your points in general, but I'd say that we should not expend any energy to destroy anything. Just expend energy in creating new paths/procedures pointed in the right direction and the rest will follow.

[Raja Bose]

Basically, the 'mystique' brand of IIT's has to come down. Once the pressure comes down, we have lot more thinking space.
<snip>
Most often good students attend these colleges dejected having dropped out of JEE and other entrances. This culture needs to change.

This hits the nail on the head. Currently if one looks at it, IITs are considered the "best" and then there is the rest even though the performance of students from IITs or non-IITs when attending universities abroad is not really any different any more. Given the SDRE obsession with exams (I guess we SDREs love symbolic things - more on this in the next post) and the immense pressure of having to crack the JEE to ensure respect (for the want of a better word), our system has become totally polarized and we have ended up focusing on inconsequential things like who got what rank in JEE as opposed to ensuring that our best & brightest are channeled towards careers which are rewarding for them and their country.

Someone mentioned IIT UGs only looking out for YumBeeAyes etc., interestingly I got the same impression when I was visiting IITK back in '07. Every UG from CSE I met there wanted to know about how best to go for YumBeeAye in massa - not one was interested in making engineering as their career or going in for advanced degrees in engineering yet these were some of the smartest kids studying engineering in India! So then the question arises, whether these smart kids are doing engineering becoz they like it or becoz they see it as a status symbol or do they see it as a means of leverage - my impression was the latter two. And they are absolutely not to blame becoz our society worships exams and ranks and our ranks determine our field of study rather than interest or aptitude hence, even if one hates CSE, more likely than not he/she will go for CSE if they have a top rank.

[Raja Bose]

An example of how us SDREs love symbolism (prolly becoz a lot of us are idol worshippers dhoti shivering in dark corners ) and how our hunger for useless symbolism can screw with even the smartest minds.

Remember those newspaper headlines about how XYZ got an offer of 1 crore from Facebook? Last week during a visit to FB, I got to speak with one of those fellas. He was dejected. He seems like a straightforward sincere guy from a regular middle class background and doesn't look like the high living type (quite the opposite actually). As it turns out with all the press attention and trumpeting of big numbers by his IIT's placement cell, parents, relatives, friends, classmates, random gossip, he started believing that he had hit the jackpot and Facebook thought he was a "cut above the rest" even amongst folks who were considered a "cut above the rest" in India. When the actual financial details percolated in from FB HR and especially after he moved to the Bay Area and joined FB, he realized that the offer was pretty average for someone graduating with a BS from a decent state school in massa and working in the Bay Area for a large company as a regular software engineer. In fact he had given up focusing on apping for top massa universities and had taken the FB offer thinking he had hit the jackpot and all his well-wishers had egged him on to think so too. And now when reality hit, he is feeling dejected and thinks he has been treated in a pedestrian manner and worse, 'cheated'....OK a bit of that is due to the huge CA taxes too Plus he is regretting not going for an MS from a top school which might have landed him a better offer 1-2 years later. I had to explain to him how the system works and how nobody cares whether he aced his JEE or topped his class in IIT. Industry is much more pragmatic and they don't look for divas or precocious geniuses. They look for tangible experience and ability and as a RCG with no relevant work experience, he is considered to be at the bottom of the totem pole regardless of where he graduated from. So, he needs to forget about being cheated and dig in and work his way up while keeping his eyes & ears open for opportunities to get a leg up.

If anybody has to be blamed for his misconceptions and disappointment, it is our media and society who love to crow about 1 Crore+ job offers just becoz they look good as symbols.

[Bade]

Trying to recall the past here but did IIT-M not have an integrated M.Sc program, in physics, or math or both, way back? How about statistics? I could have sworn I had seen.....

It did not have a 5-yr program at least in the 70's and 80's, I know a few from the second half of 70's who graduated from the 2-yr program. Famous one is one of Infy's co-founders who is also a very active alumnus in giving back.

Matrimc, did not know that IIT-D had a 5 yr program too. May be it was scrapped by the 80's.

[Vayutuvan]

Matrimc, did not know that IIT-D had a 5 yr program too. May be it was scrapped by the 80's.

Bade ji, one fine day in 1975, I got a letter out-of-the blue of admission for IIT D 5 years Physics program based on my passing the NSTSE. I was in a place where everybody knew about ITI but not IIT. My dad had only an inkling about IITs. Moreover his heart was set on my doing a professional course so I ended up in Engg. I don't regret it as I got good education in (non-IIT) engg. to go onto do a pee chaddi in CS.

I had a colleague who did 5 year math from IIT B 1977-82. That is how I knew.

Bose babu
A couple of years back I also have run into several current IIT students who wanted to do Financial Engineering. May be they have changed their mind after the 2008 bursting of the bubble and the subsequent large scale lay-off of the Wall Street smart-a**es.

[negi]

RB just curious 1 crore INR in FB ? I presume it translates to at least a 6 figure number . From what I know about industry for a guy with BS a 6 figure salary for his first job in Bay area is a good sum.

[Amber G.]

jee can be cracked by coaching ..if you can slog 5 hours a day for an year ir two ,you ll probably make it within the first 1000 .

Jee can be cracked even without coaching.. and slogging 5 hours a day is neither necessary nor sufficient. All one has to do is to just answer all the questions correctly and one will most likely make it. Since all the questions are based on very simple math (or science), one does not need luck.. it is all very simple just answer basic math questions and follow math logic.

Coaching is irrelevant .. it all depends if you answer the question correctly or not.

..IITs should have more to show off than just the JEEs.

It is silly to assume that JEE defines IIT's or its students...or any such generalization.

..olympiads and jee are diametrically opposite exams...while ,it is not uncommon for jee toppers to make it the olympiad ocs camp ,a sizeable fraction of the 50 odd kids don't make it in first 5000 of jee....in my time 2 of the 6 people who represented India did not qualify in the jee mains ...the are doing extremely well presently in physics related fields ...

Both Olympiads and Jee are similar..answers are well defined and correct answers produce better scores...For a good student both are easy.

[Vayutuvan]

RB just curious 1 crore INR in FB ? I presume it translates to at least a 6 figure number . From what I know about industry for a guy with BS a 6 figure salary for his first job in Bay area is a good sum.

That's what caught my eye too. The national average for EEs is around 55K and in bay area may be in 80k. May be 200K includes future value of stock options as they get vested? If FB stock prices go kaput, the options go kaput as well.

[Raja Bose]

RB just curious 1 crore INR in FB ? I presume it translates to at least a 6 figure number . From what I know about industry for a guy with BS a 6 figure salary for his first job in Bay area is a good sum.

I guess I didn't mention that the reason the fella felt cheated is becoz the actual cash amount is not even 6 figures despite all the headlines about 1 crore package - in fact his salary package is about average. I think the media started quoting CTC - as usual symbols matter more than reality and make for better headlines. One of the things I explained to him was that he should evaluate any such offers rationally and not get taken in by hype - he will not hit the jackpot in terms of pay when working for others, period. I think he is a little disappointed with reality but he's a good kid - once he gets his feet on the ground, he won't do too badly. Though I am not sure if he will enjoy the crowded code monkey atmosphere of FB for too long, after all writing code is writing code....boring but necessary

[Raja Bose]

Both Olympiads and Jee are similar..answers are well defined and correct answers produce better scores...For a good student both are easy.

umm.....are you sure all Olympiad questions have known or well defined answers? I vaguely remember back in the late 90s when I & some classmates would pore over them (we all subscribed to JNCASR's Resonance mag back then too) that there was one problem which got solved by 1 Russian fella onlee and was an open problem. Out of all of us in that group, only 1 made it to IMO camp, rest only went up to national level. And that 1 fella ran away after a month complaining that the others in the camp were too freaky! Then he switched fields completely and now slaves away as a post-doc in some Frenchie materials lab.

[Amber G.]

Just checked IIT-M does have a 5 yr MS in Physics now in addition to the BTech Engg Physics offered by the Physics+EE dept. IIT-B always had an Engg Phys for almost 3 decades now (probably the first), and knew many personally who later did PhD in physics. Kanpur physics program was unofficially rated high among the students.

You may already know that but IIT Kanpur started Physics program (2Yr MS and PhD etc) way back in late to mid 60's ..had a pretty good faculty (loaned from top US university) and reputation in US ...graduates in physics got into MIT/ Caltech etc without any trouble..

IIT Delhi too had good Physics dept (I know a few close friends, who moved from top US university to teach there)

[vishvak]

Both Olympiads and Jee are similar..answers are well defined and correct answers produce better scores...For a good student both are easy.

umm.....are you sure all Olympiad questions have known or well defined answers? I vaguely remember back in the late 90s when I & some classmates would pore over them (we all subscribed to JNCASR's Resonance mag back then too) that there was one problem which got solved by 1 Russian fella onlee and was an open problem. Out of all of us in that group, only 1 made it to IMO camp, rest only went up to national level. And that 1 fella ran away after a month complaining that the others in the camp were too freaky! Then he switched fields completely and now slaves away as a post-doc in some Frenchie materials lab.

Just adding my 2 paise here, but clearing JEE can only get students to the course. Once inside IIT, it is another level altogether. Legendary examples I could remember were how some comps in some labs came along with Russian manuals and students cracked Russian just enough to understand commands, or Red Hat Unix versions in early 90s and IITians slogging on it to create projections on how machines would work etc etc.

I am not an IITian myself so apologies for stuff I have not done myself.

[Bade]

You may already know that but IIT Kanpur started Physics program (2Yr MS and PhD etc) way back in late to mid 60's ..had a pretty good faculty (loaned from top US university) and reputation in US ...graduates in physics got into MIT/ Caltech etc without any trouble..

IIT Delhi too had good Physics dept (I know a few close friends, who moved from top US university to teach there)

Yes, Kanpur Physics students is reputed to get admission easily in top schools for PhD. Knew one personally who went to Yale and worked for a laureate in exp HEP. Similarly, MSc Chem from IIT-M also did get easily into the top schools in the 80s.

Kanpur's Chemistry program was also supposed to be very good. When almost the best in the batch of BSc(Hons) chemistry students left for MSc at Kanpur from Jadavpur, there were a lot of murmurs as to what will happen to the UG program at JU. The profs did not like that to happen since the class strength in JU was less than 20 in Physics and Chem. Math had a larger intake around 40 or so. Though some came back to JU, basically due to homesickness very common among some of my Bengali friends. In fact one of my classmates spent a few months in IISc bengaluru for MScEngg and came running back to Kolkata to do the post-BSc Instrumentation BTech at JU. He had a similar running away incident from a WB engg college to be a day scholar at JU three years before that. Also some students from Phys/Math were lost regularly to IITs by the second year.

A Kharagpur retired physics faculty's ward even chose to study in JU instead of at Kharagpur to be at home, later did not go to the tifr/pune MSc program too for the same reason. No one I knew from JU days wanted to go to Kgp MSc program not being in the metro was a reason perhaps.

[SriKumar]

Trying to recall the past here but did IIT-M not have an integrated M.Sc program, in physics, or math or both, way back? How about statistics? I could have sworn I had seen.....

It did not have a 5-yr program at least in the 70's and 80's, I know a few from the second half of 70's who graduated from the 2-yr program. Famous one is one of Infy's co-founders who is also a very active alumnus in giving back.

Post deleted.

[Bade]

The dual degree BS+MS 5 year program at IIT-M seem to have started from 2009 from a quick google search comments in a blog. So it is a recent one, the Engg Physics one at IIT-M must also be a recent one.

KGP had a 5 yr program a very old one for sure.

[SriKumar]

The dual degree BS+MS 5 year program at IIT-M seem to have started from 2009 from a quick google search comments in a blog. So it is a recent one, the Engg Physics one at IIT-M must also be a recent one.

KGP had a 5 yr program a very old one for sure.

May have been math or something else then....did not dig too deep anyway after that. (deleted previous post).

[kasthuri]

Industry is much more pragmatic and they don't look for divas or precocious geniuses. They look for tangible experience and ability and as a RCG with no relevant work experience, he is considered to be at the bottom of the totem pole regardless of where he graduated from.

No offense to any quants here. In the US, Wall street too casts such magic. Math/Physics PhD. after all the toil they endure land up only in the street. There are several charms to take away people from seeking knowledge. What to do!

[Singha]

speaking of rankings, all the rankings that get published of universities worldwide seem heavily loaded in favour of the anglosphere. esp UK and Aus have a disproportionate number of univs in the list, vs germany, france and japan considering the track record and weight categories they do boxing in.

germany typically would have only a half dozen places , but somehow they are able to operate lakhs of cos at a world class level, which means world class people. they are not big into immigration or attracting the worlds best, so mostly it must be a quality production line of locals. how do they do it?
same for japan - again even lower in immigration.

BASF is showing off a kids chemistry learning pavillion in the indo-german mela here this week. I am yet to such efforts from the most revered highly strung cos barring sponsoring some chairs in *US* univs !! if our corporate giants dont take up such initiatives who will?

a few of the founders of such revered cos if they donated 5% of their net worth we could have a massive world class science center here on the likes of any leading city worldwide...instead we are forced to soldier on with the decrepit and aeging Visveswaraya science center which clearly lacks funds. why is HAL satisfied with its unchanging museum and doesnt improve it to a much bigger facility featuring life scale models?

[Bade]

German Univs and labs do have the equivalent of immigrant slaves, it just not well advertised like US does. DESY lab in Hamburg was full of East Europeans and Russians too as temporary visitor scientists. Lots of Indian post-docs these days head to Germany for a stint or two. But usually the final target of this floating post-doc population from India is the US. Recently even direct post-doc hires from India to various space sciences labs are in process. We have a few such cross continental potential immigrants at our work place.

There is a fella from SPL, Tvm in my neck of the woods. More will follow I am sure.

[Singha]

sweden is also a emerging destination for post docs...uppsala univ etc.

[hnair]

I once remember speaking to a friend of mine, who is a huge fan of Germany. This guy is a math olympiad types while representing the old homeland in ... shotput

His view: Post-Yugoslav civil war, there is a LOT of good will in the Balkans and slavic areas for Deustchland. Except the Serbs, the rest all consider Deutschaland as their friend when they were in need. Due to this positive image, the best and brightest students from these parts stream there, but unlike the high-voltage publicity that khan provides to immigrant superstars, they are provided with nothing. A mistake that doesnt seem to get rectified.

One sees a few FB posts about this guy from the area, but very rare

[negi]

Germany was on fore front as far as pure sciences were concerned during early part of the 20th century, during that time there was a craze amongst the elites in India to send their kids to 'bilayat'( England) for ICS/Law or STEM fields however things changed after independence. I know a few in my friend circle who went to Germany for higher studies.

[Arjun]

With reference to the Olympiad discussions, here's a good link: Olympiad FAQ

The mathematics Olympiads differs in many important respects from the Olympiads in physics and chemistry. Some of the points of difference:

(1) The syllabus for the Physics and Chemistry Olympiad is very closely related to the syllabus for school and engineering entrance examinations. For the Mathematics Olympiad, on the hand, there is a whole range of topics that is not covered at all in school or engineering entrance examinations.

There is in fact a heavy intersection between people doing well on the IIT-JEE and people doing well in the Physics and Chemistry Olympiad. Most of the team members are in the top 200-300 in the IIT-JEE.

In summary- the six member Indian teams for Physics and Chem Olympiads typically comprises of some of the toppers from JEE. The Maths intersection is not as high - because (a) the syllabus is quite different and (b) the style of the papers differ markedly.