Changes in IIIT Hyderabad Admission Process

I was at IIIT Hyderabad last week, and was chatting with their Director and Dean, and found out many changes that they have brought about in their admission process this year for their under-graduate (including dual-degree) programs. I checked since someone on twitter had alerted me to it. After my visit to Hyderabad, I met a couple of parents of 12th class students, and they were not aware of these changes. Given that I have been very impressed with IIIT-Hyderabad and have been strongly recommending them ever since I started writing blogs a decade ago, I thought I will point out those changes here in the hope that I will reach at least a few students and parents who will benefit from this information, particularly because the application deadline is fast approaching (15th March).

If you are not in the admissions market this year, you can avoid reading this. Also, everything I say here is already on their admissions website. If you are confused, read their admissions page and/or contact them directly. That is more authentic. I do not take responsibility for any confusion or any change in their page after this blog is published.

There is one major change (for dual-degree programs) and one new admission process (for BTech programs) that you should be aware of:

1. There is a separate admission process for dual-degree programs, and the last date for application is March 15th.
2. There is a new admission process for a limited number of seats in the BTech program for those who qualified for the UDAAN scheme of CBSE and students who are in the 6-year integrated 12th plus BTech program (after 10th class) and have completed the equivalent of 12th class. Again the application deadline is 15th March.

Of course, they continue to have a separate admission process to their dual-degree programs for those students who have been selected for training camps of various international Olympiads - Informatics, Mathematics, Science, and Linguistics. The Link.

Of course, most of the admissions to BTech programs will continue to be through JEE Mains as usual, and there is enough time to apply as the admission portal will open only on 1st April for these admissions. The link.

While I am at it, let me also mention that IIIT Hyderabad has a very interesting lateral entry program for two of its dual degree programs. Under this program, one can shift to IIIT Hyderabad after spending two years in another engineering college, and you can get both BTech and MS by Research degrees in another 4 years. If you were to complete your BTech in current college and then apply for MS degere, you will spend the same amount of time. And hence this is a great program if you are interested in doing Masters any way. You get better quality education even during BTech. The deadline for applications this year is 15th March.

The logic for a separate process for dual-degree admissions is that more often than not, it was taken up by those who had a couple of marks less in JEE and they took this because they valued IIITH degree and not because they had any interest in research. Also, this created a hierarchy of sorts within the student community. BTechs are higher than dual-degree in perception because they had higher JEE marks even though the dual-degree students are contributing significantly to the brand value of IIIT-Hyderabad by publishing in top places. Having two separate channels of admission will break this constant comparison between BTech and dual-degree students.

In my discussions with them, I also asked them about any steps that they are taking to have more women students. Given that IITs have declared a 14% reservation for girl students, all good institutes will have fewer women students this year, unless they do something special. The gender ratio in top institutes is already poor and will only become worse. The new admission process targeted at UDAAN qualifiers is one attempt at attracting more women students. Further, they will consider need-based financial assistance this year which helps more women students since many families are reluctant to invest in women education.