7 Common Myths in JEE Aspirants About IIT
IIT-JEE aspirants often wonder things about the IITs, their dream institutions. They discuss about them with their friends. However, in this process, like the classical game of Chinese Whispers, a lot of wrong information is floated around, which gets turned and twisted at every stage and ultimately gets misguiding at once. Most aspirants believe these myths to be true, which could be harmful sometimes. Even I used to believe some of these before coming to IIT. Here are 7 common myths relating to IITs. Please provide feedback, positive or negative, through comments at the end of this post:
Myth 1: “IIT Mandi is the best according to that magazine’s rankings”
Around the time of April-May each year, all magazines claim to have conducted surveys and studies in all colleges across India, and allot points on different fields like campus, academics, extra-academics, etc. Do you really think these magazines go to all these colleges and do these studies and surveys as they claim? Even if they do, how accurate is their evaluation? The truth is, in fact, no such study is ever conducted by any of those magazines. Such rankings and points are given by a group of their reporters, most of who cannot even differentiate IITs from IIMs. The rankings and points given are based on the feedback they receive from mostly random people around them. The views are highly prone to be biased towards or against a particular IIT. Also, most often these rankings are highly influenced by the promoters of private colleges (VIT was once ranked better than IIT Guwahati by some magazine). These rankings are also never consistent. Different magazines have entirely different rankings. So it makes no sense to base your judgement about a college on these rankings. They are indicative up to some extent, like they would never place IIT Bhubaneshwar above IIT Kharagpur. They just should be trusted with utmost care, not blindly.
Myth 2: “IITians have to work hard day and night owing to the extreme pressure”
Thanks to the movie 3 Idiots for this. People often think of IITs as institutions where students are under extreme pressure all the time and are always looking for new ways to commit suicide in their hostel rooms. Students have to take unlimited assignments and surprise tests from their grumpy old professors, which leaves them with no time for anything apart from academics, killing their innovative thinking. The truth is, yes, there is a certain amount of academic pressure in IITs, which is more than other engineering colleges. But the pressure is never more than what we can handle. After all, IITians are the top 2% of the students who apply for it. They are supposed to be better than the others. Whatever pressure is there, is easily handled by the students. And we get more time (and facilities) for extra academics than other colleges. Ask any IITian, and you would know we complete most of our syllabus in the 1-2 weeks before exams. Rest of the time is used to develop extra skills, academic or non-academic. And there is plenty of time and encouragement to do something, anything, innovative. Students in private colleges often do not get so much time and freedom to do so.
Myth 3: “IIT Kanpur is good at Physics, etc”
This is a common one. I don’t know where these kinds of rumors get started from. It’s true that a particular IIT may have better research facilities for a particular subject, but B. Tech. students have nothing to do with it. Having better research facilities and scientists does not mean the professors will teach you any better. Also, B. Tech. students are most probably not going to use any of those research facilities during their B. Tech. program. So it does not mean a thing for undergraduate students. It only makes a difference for the research scholars (Ph. D. students) or M. Tech. students.
Myth 4: “IITs have more than 100% placements”
It still makes me laugh. I heard it for the first time around the time of my JEE counselling, from one of my friends who had also cracked the JEE. Some people believe IITs have “600% placements. It means the total number of job offers available are 6 times more than the number of students passing out.” This is entirely wrong. Even a top branch in the old IITs cannot guarantee you a job. The percentage of students placed very often does not even reach the 100% mark. It hardly ever happens that a company which came to recruit from the IITs had to go back empty handed because there weren’t enough students. However, sometimes companies do go without recruiting anyone because they didn’t find any IITian competent enough to work for them. Surprising? Remember Narayan Murthy’s comment about the IITs? He said majority of students passing out of IITs fare poorly at jobs, which is why Infosys does not recruit from the IITs anymore. I am not here to debate on his comment, but it should give you an idea of what the corporate world thinks of IITs. For JEE aspirants, IITs are their dream institutions. But for the corporate, it’s just another engineering college which produces slightly more talented workers than the others. Companies want talented people who can work for the company. They don’t care how hard you worked for cracking the JEE or what was your JEE AIR. They come to IITs to recruit just because they have a better probability of finding talented people here. If you are not competent, you won’t get a job, whatever IIT and branch you may be in. Most recruiting companies have a very rigorous process of selection, to ensure that they get only the best. So, you see, the bargaining chip is with the companies, not with the IITs.
Myth 5: “I find solving linear equations interesting. I am a genius at Maths”
Students in 11th and 12th class often get over-excited by their good results in a particular subject. If you are performing well in a subject, it may mean that you have a good aptitude for it, but it does not always mean that it will remain that way once you get in college. The syllabus for Physics, Chemistry and Maths get very different once you go for higher studies in that topic. For example, while Physics in senior high school is mostly about concepts of Classical Physics, in college it mainly revolves around Modern Physics. While Classical Physics is more numerical based, Modern Physics involves more of theory. So students who used to love Physics in their senior high school often dislike the subject when they go for higher studies in the topic. However, don’t lose confidence. You may really have a good aptitude for a subject. Just don’t jump to conclusions. Get an idea of what your studies will be like once you go for higher studies in a subject, then take decisions.
Myth 6: “JEE achievers are extremely talented and should be worshiped”
Coaching centers these days will do anything to add one number to their “number of students qualified”. This has led to over-valuation of one’s JEE rank. JEE ranks’ only role is to provide a preference order for qualifying students during JEE counselling. A better ranking student’s preference is taken in to account first while allotting branches and IITs. After the seats are allotted, your JEE rank hardly holds any value. Of course it’s nice to know that you achieved such a good rank in the JEE, but now there are better ways to evaluate you. A JEE rank of 1 or 1000 hardly makes any difference 4 years after JEE. People are more interested in knowing what you are capable of doing, not in what you did 4 years ago after taking years of focused coaching for the 6-hour exam. Very often it is seen that students with better JEE ranks turn out to be less successful than others.
Around the time of April-May each year, all magazines claim to have conducted surveys and studies in all colleges across India, and allot points on different fields like campus, academics, extra-academics, etc. Do you really think these magazines go to all these colleges and do these studies and surveys as they claim? Even if they do, how accurate is their evaluation? The truth is, in fact, no such study is ever conducted by any of those magazines. Such rankings and points are given by a group of their reporters, most of who cannot even differentiate IITs from IIMs. The rankings and points given are based on the feedback they receive from mostly random people around them. The views are highly prone to be biased towards or against a particular IIT. Also, most often these rankings are highly influenced by the promoters of private colleges (VIT was once ranked better than IIT Guwahati by some magazine). These rankings are also never consistent. Different magazines have entirely different rankings. So it makes no sense to base your judgement about a college on these rankings. They are indicative up to some extent, like they would never place IIT Bhubaneshwar above IIT Kharagpur. They just should be trusted with utmost care, not blindly.
Myth 2: “IITians have to work hard day and night owing to the extreme pressure”
Thanks to the movie 3 Idiots for this. People often think of IITs as institutions where students are under extreme pressure all the time and are always looking for new ways to commit suicide in their hostel rooms. Students have to take unlimited assignments and surprise tests from their grumpy old professors, which leaves them with no time for anything apart from academics, killing their innovative thinking. The truth is, yes, there is a certain amount of academic pressure in IITs, which is more than other engineering colleges. But the pressure is never more than what we can handle. After all, IITians are the top 2% of the students who apply for it. They are supposed to be better than the others. Whatever pressure is there, is easily handled by the students. And we get more time (and facilities) for extra academics than other colleges. Ask any IITian, and you would know we complete most of our syllabus in the 1-2 weeks before exams. Rest of the time is used to develop extra skills, academic or non-academic. And there is plenty of time and encouragement to do something, anything, innovative. Students in private colleges often do not get so much time and freedom to do so.
Myth 3: “IIT Kanpur is good at Physics, etc”
This is a common one. I don’t know where these kinds of rumors get started from. It’s true that a particular IIT may have better research facilities for a particular subject, but B. Tech. students have nothing to do with it. Having better research facilities and scientists does not mean the professors will teach you any better. Also, B. Tech. students are most probably not going to use any of those research facilities during their B. Tech. program. So it does not mean a thing for undergraduate students. It only makes a difference for the research scholars (Ph. D. students) or M. Tech. students.
Myth 4: “IITs have more than 100% placements”
It still makes me laugh. I heard it for the first time around the time of my JEE counselling, from one of my friends who had also cracked the JEE. Some people believe IITs have “600% placements. It means the total number of job offers available are 6 times more than the number of students passing out.” This is entirely wrong. Even a top branch in the old IITs cannot guarantee you a job. The percentage of students placed very often does not even reach the 100% mark. It hardly ever happens that a company which came to recruit from the IITs had to go back empty handed because there weren’t enough students. However, sometimes companies do go without recruiting anyone because they didn’t find any IITian competent enough to work for them. Surprising? Remember Narayan Murthy’s comment about the IITs? He said majority of students passing out of IITs fare poorly at jobs, which is why Infosys does not recruit from the IITs anymore. I am not here to debate on his comment, but it should give you an idea of what the corporate world thinks of IITs. For JEE aspirants, IITs are their dream institutions. But for the corporate, it’s just another engineering college which produces slightly more talented workers than the others. Companies want talented people who can work for the company. They don’t care how hard you worked for cracking the JEE or what was your JEE AIR. They come to IITs to recruit just because they have a better probability of finding talented people here. If you are not competent, you won’t get a job, whatever IIT and branch you may be in. Most recruiting companies have a very rigorous process of selection, to ensure that they get only the best. So, you see, the bargaining chip is with the companies, not with the IITs.
Myth 5: “I find solving linear equations interesting. I am a genius at Maths”
Students in 11th and 12th class often get over-excited by their good results in a particular subject. If you are performing well in a subject, it may mean that you have a good aptitude for it, but it does not always mean that it will remain that way once you get in college. The syllabus for Physics, Chemistry and Maths get very different once you go for higher studies in that topic. For example, while Physics in senior high school is mostly about concepts of Classical Physics, in college it mainly revolves around Modern Physics. While Classical Physics is more numerical based, Modern Physics involves more of theory. So students who used to love Physics in their senior high school often dislike the subject when they go for higher studies in the topic. However, don’t lose confidence. You may really have a good aptitude for a subject. Just don’t jump to conclusions. Get an idea of what your studies will be like once you go for higher studies in a subject, then take decisions.
Myth 6: “JEE achievers are extremely talented and should be worshiped”
Coaching centers these days will do anything to add one number to their “number of students qualified”. This has led to over-valuation of one’s JEE rank. JEE ranks’ only role is to provide a preference order for qualifying students during JEE counselling. A better ranking student’s preference is taken in to account first while allotting branches and IITs. After the seats are allotted, your JEE rank hardly holds any value. Of course it’s nice to know that you achieved such a good rank in the JEE, but now there are better ways to evaluate you. A JEE rank of 1 or 1000 hardly makes any difference 4 years after JEE. People are more interested in knowing what you are capable of doing, not in what you did 4 years ago after taking years of focused coaching for the 6-hour exam. Very often it is seen that students with better JEE ranks turn out to be less successful than others.
Myth 7: “Once I get into IIT, I will have girls/boys lined up for me”
Oh yeah, why not? Boys would love their girlfriend to:
Oh yeah, why not? Boys would love their girlfriend to:
- study all day and all night long
- care only and ONLY about her grades
- be obese, wear specs and have no fashion sense at all
- be in a college where all boys know all the details about her
- nag all the time about how good she is at maths
- think she is the most beautiful girl on earth even if she is looks worse than Rakhi Sawant
And what could a girl possibly wish for? All girls would die for a boy who:
- has not talked to anyone else besides his parents and teachers during high school
- can tell the HTML code for the color of a girl’s salwar-kameez
- shows off all the time about him being an IITian
- who thinks of himself as “Gawd” because he is so good at Physics, Chemistry and Maths
- thinks the number “69″ is so significant because it is the atomic number of thulium
- uses bullet points to say something… oh wait
Hope this clears up some of your myths and makes you more aware. By the way, the game of Chinese Whispers has been used in UK schools to simulate the spread of gossip and supposed harmful effects. It is also used to teach young children how to listen attentively. So better take the lesson early without having to play the game in real life. 
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