Is an IIT engg degree a requirement to start a non-engg company ? If not then JEE qualified with interests in business should have a place to go other than IIT with good brand value.This whole IIT+IIM, IMHO, is nothing but an effort to enter into high paying jobs. MBA is never a requirement to start a successful kumphiny.
Since, IIMs do have similar brand recognition, why not put them up there. 
I think I understand your position a little better. I do think a broader question should be asked: what is the correlation of 'high IQ' with success in a career; high IQ as determined by a test in the 17th year of one's life. Are most high IQ kids uniformly successful? Do most successful people have a uniformly high IQ, as determined by GRE/Mensa/some other test? Certainly, the answer depends on what is considered as success. (A few years ago, I read a study done by a psychologist who tracked some high IQ kids in the US (as measured in middle school) for about 15 years or so. The results were mixed. I struggle to remember the researcher, but I'll look.) It was published as a book or perhaps an article in a bookArjun wrote: Also, the JEE is highly correlated with most other accepted measures of high IQ - including the Olympiads, GRE and Mensa
This line caught my eye....really, for such people there ought to be a different avenue allowing them to pursue what they want. Give them the super-duper high IQ public stamp of genio-supremacity that they want (and probably deserve), and get them into something else. This is indeed a massive waste of time and resource.Anyone teaching in IITs is aware that many of our undergraduate students are just not interested in engineering. A small proportion of them know they will never take up an engineering career even before they enter IIT.
I submit that we actually need more vaishyas in deshRamaY wrote:If anyone wants pursue education beyond a 5 year under grad, they should commit to a 5 year PhD program. These will be our real Brahmins
. (singha...did not know you TA'ed 4th yr UGs at IIT-K).Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam never shared with media why exactly he left the Nalanda University project. The project was his brainchild whose origin could be traced back to his address to the Bihar Legislative Assembly on March 28, 2006. The Nalanda University proudly displays his speech on its official website. The University would, however, loath to admit why Kalam left the project despite being nominated as its first Visitor under Clause 5 (e) of the Nalanda University Act, 2010.
It was obvious that he was upset the way project had been handled. But it is for the first time that Bihar Times has accessed the complete truth in Kalam’s own words- his letter to the External Affairs Minister on July 4, 2011. Kalam’s letter to Mr. S.M. Krishna reveals why he was not in a position to become the first Visitor of the Nalanda University.
Para 3 of the letter reads-
“Having involved in various academic and administrative proceedings of Nalanda University since August 2007, I believe that the candidates to be selected/appointed to the post of Chancellor and Vice Chancellor should be of extraordinary intellect with academic and management expertise. Both the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor have to personally involve themselves full-time in Bihar, so that a robust and strong international institution is built”.
This letter dated July 4, 2011 was in possession of Sanjay Singh, Secretary (East), MEA when he came to attend the Governing Board meeting at Patna on July 6 & 7, 2011. He read it to the Board in the first hour of the meeting, as the minutes of the proceedings indicate. But its mention was completely suppressed while interacting with the press. The matter was concealed for more than two months when an e-mail from Patna-based journalist K.K. Singh to Dr. Kalam brought the issue to light in mid-September.
Kalam felt frustrated with the people at helm of affairs. His resignation is evidentally a rebuff to Prof. Amartya Sen and his protégé Dr. Gopa Sabharwal, smuggled in as the Vice Chancellor-Designate without his knowledge. Being chairman, Governing Board, Prof. Sen’s position is equivalent to Chancellor (the University officially has none as yet). Neither Prof. Sen nor Dr. Sabharwal could inspire the confidence of Dr. Kalam.
Kalam and Prof. Sen represent the opposite ends of the spectrum. Dr. Kalam, though an expert in ‘rocket science’- a proverbially modern and complex discipline- is rooted in Indian tradition. He has worked for India’s self-reliance in defence sector. Prof. Amartya Sen on the other hand is one of those ‘run away’ success stories in academics. He ran away from India for dreamland in the West. Even the social welfare Trust that Prof. Sen founded in 1999 named Pratichi (West). In Chairman’s message on the website of Pratichi Trust Prof. Sen does not fail to remind us that he studied in Cambridge.
Kalam’s letter is also an indictment of Dr. Gopa Sabharwal. The Reader from Lady Sri Ram College of Delhi University was smuggled in as Rector/Vice Chancellor-Designate by Dr. Amartya Sen. Bihar Times broke the story how Amartya Sen acted in an unauthorized fashion to recommend the name of Dr. Gopa Sabharwal for Rector’s post. The governing board now complains about lack of toilet facilities in Rajgir. It is pity they never thought about it while conferring in Singapore, New York and Tokyo.
There have been hundreds of studies on IQ...it is certainly true that the relationship between IQ and success is not linear. But that is not the same as saying the two are uncorrelated.SriKumar wrote: I think I understand your position a little better. I do think a broader question should be asked: what is the correlation of 'high IQ' with success in a career; high IQ as determined by a test in the 17th year of one's life. Are most high IQ kids uniformly successful? Do most successful people have a uniformly high IQ, as determined by GRE/Mensa/some other test? Certainly, the answer depends on what is considered as success. (A few years ago, I read a study done by a psychologist who tracked some high IQ kids in the US (as measured in middle school) for about 15 years or so. The results were mixed. I struggle to remember the researcher, but I'll look.) It was published as a book or perhaps an article in a book
Difference per student does not work to that much per my calculations.Singha wrote:taking into account greater infra, better faculty pay, better hostels, more staff and faculty the cost of a IIT student is likely 3X that of a NIT student and the cost of a NIT student again higher than a govt run state engg college.
I am sure the current budget of IITs can be found online somewhere...likely to much higher than nit because they much more project grants and infra grants as well.
N.I.T., Warangal is a residential institute with nearly 3355 (UG : 2251 & PG : 1104) students apart from nearly 269 Ph.D., (150 Full Time and 119 Part time) Scholars. It has nearly 200 teaching staff and 360 administrative and supporting staff apart from outsource personnel
In an educational institution the majority of the budget is allocated for three itemsIIT Madras is a residential institute with nearly 460 faculty, 4500 students and 1250 administrative & supporting staff
There are two levels of normalization that are required in order to compare budgets at the UG level-RamaY wrote:Do you still think NITw's 70 crore budget == IITm 200 cr budget?
Just IQ tests alone would not give any indication of the zone of proximal development. Measuring this factor is important because when the students are taught by good teachers, it is possible for them to achieve much higher levels development than what the plain IQ tests predict.Wikipedia wrote:Dynamic assessment
Notable and increasingly influential[110][111] alternative to the wide range of standard IQ tests originated in the writings of psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) of his most mature and highly productive period of 1932-1934. The notion of the zone of proximal development that he introduced in 1933, roughly a year before his death, served as the banner for his proposal to diagnose development as the level of actual development that can be measured by the child's independent problem solving and, at the same time, the level of proximal, or potential development that is measured in the situation of moderately assisted problem solving by the child[112]. The maximum level of complexity and difficulty of the problem that the child is capable to solve under some guidance indicates the level of potential development. Then, the difference between the higher level of potential and the lower level of actual development indicates the zone of proximal development. Combination of the two indexes—the level of actual and the zone of the proximal development—according to Vygotsky, provides a significantly more informative indicator of psychological development than the assessment of the level of actual development alone[113][114].
In the spectrum bounded by 'not linear' and 'are not uncorrelated' is a vast space that encompasses the lives of millions of students in India (250,000 per year, times 10 or 20 years). It is one thing to apply the IQ premise to a single person (oneself) and quite another to apply it to a national policy situation. I am fine if someone wants to believe in this and perhaps raise his/her kids and focus on 'IQ', but national policies have to take into account the broader society at large. The larger context has to be considered when millions are affected.Arjun wrote: .....it is certainly true that the relationship between IQ and success is not linear. But that is not the same as saying the two are uncorrelated.
From the link above: High IQ is not the whole and sole formula for success. There is much more to the success recipe.This article concludes that practical real world achievements require IQ between 120 & 150, while scientists / theoretical accomplishments require IQ between 150 -180 : Correlation Between IQ and Success
which why I have developed a degree of allergy to the sloka 'guru brahma gurur vishnu... I think this is somehow internalized in the desi education system. There is no acknowledgement that the teacher might also learn something from a student.gakakkad wrote:Unnecessary devotion to hierarchy is one of the greatest problems of the Indian education system .
true...and you run into a lot of them. In a conference I had attended (presenting a really chota paper as a lowly grad.) I was introduced by a person who wrote a well-known text book in my area......since then, I have met and interacted with many more who have written books in their respective fields. They were all nice and uniformly friendly. It is almost like they have a level of respect for the (idea of a) student..... and truth be told, where would the professors be with their publications if they did not have grad students to do the grunt work. But the interaction is definitely less hierarchical and on more even terms...altogether more healthy.one of the best features about massa education system is that everyone is very warm and friendly....giants of medicine.....
Srikumarji, I am a huge votary of the thinking that there are various kinds of talent - and that ALL of these kinds of talent need celebration and afforded a platform where such talent can succeed.SriKumar wrote: In the spectrum bounded by 'not linear' and 'are not uncorrelated' is a vast space that encompasses the lives of millions of students in India (250,000 per year, times 10 or 20 years). It is one thing to apply the IQ premise to a single person (oneself) and quite another to apply it to a national policy situation. I am fine if someone wants to believe in this and perhaps raise his/her kids and focus on 'IQ', but national policies have to take into account the broader society at large. The larger context has to be considered when millions are affected.
OK how would you define the bolded term? Its interesting that you brought this term up becoz I was just now thinking about exactly this.Arjun wrote:You don't need to diss the IIT UG type of talent
Talent for high-end analytical, problem solving in the PCM domain...inferring from JEE criteria. Inferring from other kind of tests that IITians typically tend to top in droves - this would be broadened to any mathematical / analytical IQ based problem-solving (GRE/CAT/Olympiad type problem solving). We can also infer types of talent from the generic IIT profile of career achievement post-IIT, but lets leave that aside for the moment.Raja Bose wrote:OK how would you define the bolded term?
Primary mission should be to make India a leader in scientific and applied research. That mission is obviously far from being met. But then, the owners for that mission would be the IIT Faculty, researchers, Post-Docs, and PG students. UGs don't play a role in any University's research mission - why would we even bring UGs into a discussion about IIT research standards?I don't think one should diss any kind of talent but the question still remains, is the right kind of talent being admitted and nurtured in the IIT? After all IITs were set up with a specific mission in the mind - is that being fulfilled? I don't think one can just treat as some random institute.
Arjun wrote: Talent for high-end analytical, problem solving in the PCM domain...inferring from JEE criteria.
That is all they do... nothing else...other kind of tests that IITians typically tend to top in droves
That is not uniformly true. In fact it is not even majorly true. There are a quite a few extremely well known professors (Turing award winner level types) in CS in various departments across the country who do and love to teach undergrad courses. TAs never handle the courses all by themselves. Also, 300-400 level courses contain a mixture of UGs and grad students. At least in the cases I know, the professor has to teach one UG course in one semester and the other semester she can choose to construct a syllabus for any course they want to teach. TAs do the grading, keep office hours, assist in setting homework and test problems and conduct readings and discussion sessions and may be teach an occasional class when the professor is attending a conference or NSFSingha wrote:in the khanate arent many UG courses in 1st and 2nd yr really taught and marked by TAs ? are TAs allowed to teach 3rd and 4th yr courses also? I have heard some profs have reached an extreme where they do not teach much if at all and focus mostly on their R&D with the PG students...univs were trying to roll that back some and make them take up teaching also...
.I'm not so sure about that. In khan land professors compete for research funds from private/public institutes. Winning funds means new equipment and new hires to go after research ideas. Not the other way around. Time is not really relevant. Some minimal equipment, esp. in pure science is provided by university for sure but money buys faculty. With out winning such grants it is hard for IIT's to keep at the cutting edge of world research. I even doubt they are at the cutting edge of Indian research! The Asahi glass plant is Chennai for instance is doing cutting edge research on lamination, burglary proofing and scratch protecting glass types. Definitely world class from what I saw. Nothing like it exists at IIT's. Staffed entirely by B.E & B.Tech from small local colleges. IMHO IIT professors did not seem to be the 'personality type' to beg on knees for grants from glass company, at least back then. This is what profs in massaland do day in day out. Keeps them 'grounded', humble and realistic. The ones who work on GOTUS projects such as Honeywell tend to be more robust and brusque because they can afford to be so. To be honest the world passed the testing based institutes by a long time ago. I have heard most companies now have a small research group staffed entirely by non-IIT types. Can't afford them for research.Singha wrote:since the IITs are best equipped in terms of physical infra , faculty etc to conduct R&D, there have been proposals in the past to convert more of the seats into PG seats and reduce some of the teaching load on faculty as a side effect. this would be similar to IISc which until recently did not offer any UG degrees (I think they have some kind of 5 yr combined courses now). the idea was let the UGs be in limited number and the rest go to NITs and such.
I think you are all over the place here....first you start of with IQ, then you segue over to 'talent' (which, I see as something different). Then you set up this commentary about 'celebration' and 'flowering of all talent' and 'platforms'. I did not say or imply any of this. And as for 'dissing' UG type talent I am not even sure what you mean or how I did that. I have stated clearly in the past atleast one reason JEE makes sense- that it is one single exam and standard for all in India. I have not said this before but I also dont like the idea of adding Board exam marks, for the same reason- different Boards have different grading standards. I cannot fathom how the XIIth class cut-off percentages for college admissions (posted in a previous page ) are so high, especially in physics and chemistry where marks presumably include performance in practical labs with viva voce. At some level, it must be inflation of marks, with the stricter Boards gradually watering down their marking standards over time.Arjun wrote:
But anybody who thinks the only way to boost other talents is to diss one talent that he/she doesn't share - needs to have another think coming! .....You don't need to diss the IIT UG type of talent to make a case for there being various other talents that are perhaps unrecognized, and need platforms for flowering...
I had noted your repeated comments that you wanted to delink IIT research programs from the discussion, and had therefore stayed away from the topic. In fact, in one of my posts in a previous page, I had explicitly stated that research is a completely different kettle of fish. If the focus is UG, then let the markets decide. This personal comment about 'rational thinking' is uncalled for. I could reply in kind but that would only perpetuate this further make it even more pointless. I think it represents a limit that has been reached in our discussion as no new points are being made.Secondly, the problem we are grappling with is poor research output by Indian universities and by the IITs. Anybody who, in trying to address this problem, focuses on UGs and JEE as being any kind of major factor at all in that discussion - seems to me to have missed the boat on rational thinking.
Vaisyas need something to trade. That comes from Sudra part of the society. The Brahmins invent and sudras manufacture. Kshatriya dharma is to protect these three Varnas in a dharmic manner.SriKumar wrote:I submit that we actually need more vaishyas in desh
Srikumarji, my mistake- I should have been more explicit. Only the first paragraph of my previous response was a direct reply to you. The rest of it was a general commentary more aimed at a few others who have not been shy of doing exactly what I've bolded above. I've found your comments to be pretty rational, though it did seem to me that you were not entirely on board with a JEE-type analytical aptitude entrance test for UGs. But if you are - then there is nothing much for us to disagree upon.SriKumar wrote:And as for 'dissing' IIT UG type talent I am not even sure what you mean or how I did that.
There are star profs who teach undergrad and are very good teachers - they are also usually the most learned ones becoz teaching keeps one on their toes. Richard Feynman is an example of such a prof who was much loved by students. John Thompson is another one. BTW grad students are allowed to teach 3rd or 4th year courses (at least in mathematics) - they are paid a TA's salary but called 'instructor'Singha wrote: in the khanate arent many UG courses in 1st and 2nd yr really taught and marked by TAs ? are TAs allowed to teach 3rd and 4th yr courses also? I have heard some profs have reached an extreme where they do not teach much if at all and focus mostly on their R&D with the PG students...univs were trying to roll that back some and make them take up teaching also...
And yes, a lot of star profs don't wanna teach at all and mostly try to focus on R&D, flesh pumping and politics - these are usually the more politically connected types who see academia as another version of Kangress.OK then we have a problem. Research & innovation in the real world is not about getting a known problem handed to you and being asked to solve it. Analytical problem solving by itself is only one part of the skill set required and is not even the most difficult part of the process. There is a whole different qualitative aspect to it which cannot be determined by analytical problem solving skills. Interestingly this is also what I have observed when I interviewed IIT grads from recent years - you hand them a neat problem, they can go after it and solve it. You ask them to come up with "what is a problem" - they mostly go blank and keep asking for a precise definition. This is not the case with the relatively older IIT grads which indicates to me that this recent "kota" style of JEE prep & current form of JEE might be leading to selection of people with a very narrow niche of skills which is not holistic & not useful without supervision - hardly befitting India's flagship engineering college.Arjun wrote:Talent for high-end analytical, problem solving in the PCM domain...inferring from JEE criteria. Inferring from other kind of tests that IITians typically tend to top in droves - this would be broadened to any mathematical / analytical IQ based problem-solving (GRE/CAT/Olympiad type problem solving). We can also infer types of talent from the generic IIT profile of career achievement post-IIT, but lets leave that aside for the moment.Raja Bose wrote:OK how would you define the bolded term?
Where is the supply of PGs going to come from?? If the top star students of a flagship institution consider that institution to be 2nd rate for doing further studies & research and the type of students taken in for UG have no inclination to do scientific or applied research, then I would say that institution has definitely failed to meet its goals. And consequently the IITs have failed to meet their primary mission for which the GoI build them. Hence, one cannot just keep status quo for IIT UGs just becoz there is a need to feel "a cut apart" from the rest of the population and to keep the mystique - we as a country don't have the luxury of such intangibles.Arjun wrote: Primary mission should be to make India a leader in scientific and applied research. That mission is obviously far from being met. But then, the owners for that mission would be the IIT Faculty, researchers, Post-Docs, and PG students. UGs don't play a role in any University's research mission - why would we even bring UGs into a discussion about IIT research standards?
Agree. Formulating the problem i.e. what is the issue, what are the parameters that affect it.... is a whole different skill set; qualitative, as you put it.Raja Bose wrote: Analytical problem solving by itself is only one part of the skill set required and is not even the most difficult part of the process. There is a whole different qualitative aspect to it which cannot be determined by analytical problem solving skills.
Can we really ascribe it to Kota-style training? The people you interview have a Bachelor's; then a Masters in massa and maybe a Ph.d after that. The non-JEE skills (formulating a problem for a an ambiguous (or real-world) system etc.) should have been learnt atleast during the Master's, if not Bachelor's. I am not sure Kota-style training is to blame unless this type of training actually _filters out_ such people (sounds a bit far-fetched, though). Ultimately, formulating a problem statement of an ambiguous, real-world situation is a learnable skill. It is just a question of when does it get taught/learnt. Perhaps the difference is in the length of work-experience, which would explain the difference between old grads and recent grads.Interestingly this is also what I have observed when I interviewed IIT grads from recent years - you hand them a neat problem, they can go after it and solve it. You ask them to come up with "what is a problem" - they mostly go blank and keep asking for a precise definition. This is not the case with the relatively older IIT grads which indicates to me that this recent "kota" style of JEE prep & current form of JEE might be leading to selection of people with a very narrow niche of skills which is not holistic & not useful without supervision - hardly befitting India's flagship engineering college.
Much depends on the univ. and depts. themselves. In large state univs. you will have TAs for 3rd & 4th year courses, but often these TAs will be on the Ph.D. track. Some courses they teach are required for graduation and so the curriculum is well known. Like RB says in math you may find a math TA teaching 3rd & 4th year engr. students probability/statistics and linear algebra. You won't find TAs for UG topics like quantum mechanics or elec./magn. The profs who do not teach receive their entire salary from grants, should their grants fall low any particular year, they may have to cut research staff, stipends, and in a worst case go back to teaching. I've rarely seen this in the sciences when these type of fellows become extremely good at greasing the research dollar tracks to keep the funds going. Many multiple sources of grants come in from DARPA, NSF, NIH and CDC.Raja Bose wrote:There are star profs who teach undergrad and are very good teachers - they are also usually the most learned ones becoz teaching keeps one on their toes. Richard Feynman is an example of such a prof who was much loved by students. John Thompson is another one. BTW grad students are allowed to teach 3rd or 4th year courses (at least in mathematics) - they are paid a TA's salary but called 'instructor'Singha wrote: in the khanate arent many UG courses in 1st and 2nd yr really taught and marked by TAs ? are TAs allowed to teach 3rd and 4th yr courses also? I have heard some profs have reached an extreme where they do not teach much if at all and focus mostly on their R&D with the PG students...univs were trying to roll that back some and make them take up teaching also...
Interesting point. Probably requires us to get to the heart of which traits are fundamental to research, and which ones of these traits / skills are learnable vs which ones or not.Raja Bose wrote:OK then we have a problem. Research & innovation in the real world is not about getting a known problem handed to you and being asked to solve it. Analytical problem solving by itself is only one part of the skill set required and is not even the most difficult part of the process. There is a whole different qualitative aspect to it which cannot be determined by analytical problem solving skills. Interestingly this is also what I have observed when I interviewed IIT grads from recent years - you hand them a neat problem, they can go after it and solve it. You ask them to come up with "what is a problem" - they mostly go blank and keep asking for a precise definition. This is not the case with the relatively older IIT grads which indicates to me that this recent "kota" style of JEE prep & current form of JEE might be leading to selection of people with a very narrow niche of skills which is not holistic & not useful without supervision - hardly befitting India's flagship engineering college.
I should have clarified - they are PhD or MS degree holders from massa universities (some from UKstan Oxbridge). Now to the point of figuring out what is a problem (mind you this is different from being given a situation and asked to formulate a problem statement), this is something which can be refined thru learning but one needs to have that inherent trait to begin with (BTW doing a PhD doesn't mean you have that trait or can learn it - there are enuff loopholes and types of advising where folks can get away without having that, though good PhDs will have it). And that trait I find missing in a lot of the new grads who came in thru the IIT system. That is why my original question to Arjun was "Is JEE filtering in the right kind of students?". Now the obvious question is "why target the IITs onlee??" - well, they are our flagship engineering colleges, hence they will be the benchmark that other colleges should be held to. In the end we want institutions like IIT to produce individuals who can undertake forward looking research and innovate. If we just churn out skilled problem solvers who can solve problems handed to them, what we get is, management babus and bureaucrats and for that we already have IIM and UPSC - that is not a role for IITs!SriKumar wrote:Can we really ascribe it to Kota-style training? The people you interview have a Bachelor's; then a Masters in massa and maybe a Ph.d after that. The non-JEE skills (formulating a problem for a an ambiguous (or real-world) system etc.) should have been learnt atleast during the Master's, if not Bachelor's.
Absolutely it is not a common skillset but is the purpose of IIT to churn out people with that skillset onlee? I would argue that it is not. Actually your post reminded me of something I forgot to include in my earlier post. When we are looking at these criteria we need to look at the mango IIT talib rather than the super stars who achieve extreme success and make the headlines. Becoz they will be successful regardless of how you test them. But then a few stars don't make the universe shineArjun wrote: Analytical ability, in simple terms, is really the ability to ask the right questions. Many who've achieved extreme success in academia/ corporate world/ Wall Street would point to this one trait as being the core attribute retained from JEE/UG days, that's responsible for where they are currently. Analytical / JEE type questions typically present a mass of data, and require the person to figure out which parameters are relevant and which irrelevant in getting to a solution. This requires ability to ask the right questions - and as it turns out, that's not a very common skillset.
. Most innovation is done by the large mass of mango abduls, rather than a few super stars.It should be. In fact the JEE committee folks need to take a strong look at how filtering, testing and evaluation in done in top centers of research around the world when selecting UGs - everything they do may not be suitable for IITs but then the current JEE is not doing its job either unless our main goal is to be the rest of the world's contractor/back-office forever.Arjun wrote: Holistic thinking is not directly tested in the JEE, but then verbal is not as well - & we still had more IITians topping GRE verbal than other Indian institutes. Why? Probably because folks who have one talent - in many cases have multiple others as well. If this attribute is getting diluted - maybe that is a matter of concern.
I would argue these are the skills/traits which need to be tested for IIT intake. Becoz these are what is needed to innovate new things. Simply being a good problem solver is not equivalent to being a good researcher/scientist - a guy who solves Q.15 of every chapter in Irodov may not be a good researcher/someone who can create new stuff. In fact given the large number of IITians who are YumBeeAyes and IAS/IPS/IFS officers, I would say the JEE has done a great job in selecting future problem solvers (as you already stated) but it has not done a great job in selecting future researchers. That needs to be corrected at both the UG level and PG level.Arjun wrote: Another point to consider - 'What is the problem' kind of questions call for slightly different skills.
I have an issue with each of the bolded parts above.Raja Bose wrote:Where is the supply of PGs going to come from?? If the top star students of a flagship institution consider that institution to be 2nd rate for doing further studies & research and the type of students taken in for UG have no inclination to do scientific or applied research, then I would say that institution has definitely failed to meet its goals. And consequently the IITs have failed to meet their primary mission for which the GoI build them. Hence, one cannot just keep status quo for IIT UGs just becoz there is a need to feel "a cut apart" from the rest of the population and to keep the mystique - we as a country don't have the luxury of such intangibles.
Fair enough, IIT is a non-Ivy League institution comprising of Ivy-Leaguer students who contribute to further entrenchment of the current Ivy League Institutes.Now you know why I said many posts earlier that IITs cannot be compared to Ivy League yet - right now they are miles apart.