Best of the best.

There are pretty much no bad remarks but a caveat that before joining any college, be sure what want to learn. BITS is a great place to be and one will never forget what he/she learns and experiences here.

I took IIT JEE, BITSAT and AIEEE. I scored 315 in BITSAT and the reason I opted for BITS was that the college takes in students purely on the based of merit. The college also offers unique set of electives in about 30-40 different domains of interest not restricted just to Engineering or science. The placements are a real advantage since the 'Birla' label is no doubt a saviour.

The course curriculum was really good. There was a good mix of theory, research and applications. The best part being the student is free to learn anything without the burden of attending x% of the classes. However, I felt the curriculum was slightly inclined towards giving an industrial advantage rather than prompting a research-based career. But this was not applicable to all the disciplines.

My college has a program called 'Practice School', wherein the college offers internships to the students twice in a Bachelor's degree and thrice in a Master's one. The students are offered PS Stations (organizations that the college has shortlisted and tied up with) primarily based on CGPA, discipline and accommodation preference. The general stipend when I did my internship was about 10-15k INR per month. The overall experience is good since there is so much to learn and apply at the same time. If one does well, a pre-placement offer is also on the cards.

As said earlier too, the job opportunities are fairly better than the Tier 2 colleges and almost at par with the IITs. However, these also depend on your discipline with Computer Science offering as good as 20-25 LPA in India. My suggestion is to pick a company that focuses on learning rather than compensation.

There are 3 highlights about the college: 1. BITS Open Sports Meet (BOSM): THis is a sports festival that occurs in the first semester every year. College across India participate for about 50-60 sports. 2. OASIS: This is a cultural fest that happens every year in the first semester and is known to be one of the best in India. It goes on for 96 hours straight without any break and is wholly managed by students. 3. APOGEE: This is a technical fest and is more inclined towards showcasing cool projects and learning by the students. There are fun games like Stock Market predictor or bridge building challenge.

Being a privately funded institution, the fees is slightly on the higher side and can cost around 1.5 lacs per semester including the fees, mess and accommodation costs. The college administration has assured the students that the fees will never exceed 15% than the previous year. There are some ad-hoc elective offerings too under 'Audit-courses' wherein a student can apply for a course for a fee.

The college offers a number of scholarships. Merit-cum-need: This is offered to students whose families are not financially capable of supporting the full fees. The waiver range ranges from 25%-100% Merit scholarship: This is based purely on your CGPA and you can get a waiver of as much as 100% if you score a CGPA of 10. INSPIRE scholarship: This is offered under the Inspire program to the students studying science.

Campus life is awesome since there are a lot of cool things going on at any point of time. One might go to a lecture about Thermodynamics or choose to listen to the local band performing Western Night there are a lot of associations and clubs to keep one engaged.

The new hostels that have been built are really good with facilities like centrally-cooled rooms, 2 big quadrilateral grounds with volleyball and badminton areas and common rooms to play TT. Mess food is not that great since the cooks serving the food have been there for a long time.

BITS Alumni Network is called BITSAA and is one of the most active alumni network. We celebrate something called as BITSians Day every first Sunday of August. BITSAA offers scholarships, mentor ship and funding to startups on a case by case basis. The seniors are one of the coolest and are ready to help as and when they can.

Exams for the compulsory courses are pretty spaced out,however if one takes too many electives then the schedule can become really hectic. I remember I had taken about 5 exams in 4 days during the endsem exams. But you can manage the time easily if you start preparing about a month before.

Firstly, you apply to the exam somewhere in January. After your application is accepted, your board exam results are taken into consideration and if you clear the 12th board exam cutoff, your BITSAT score will be eligible to be considered for admission. Post BITSAT (which happens somewhere around April-June), you get your score immediately. Now the college will send an update as to what courses and campus do you prefer for admission. The first list of admissions comes out reflecting the course you are offered based on the scores. This happens for about 4 times and are called 'iterations'. Finally there is a final iteration that happens on campus where you have the option to change campus.

Most of the faculty were IIT/BITS grads or had done prior research abroad. The faculty knew what was best for the students but in no way imposed restrictions to tread a certain path. They were approachable to the extent that one could just give them a call and go to the faculty quarters and get the doubt clarified. The classes most of the times were engaging.