Learning vs Results: A High School Student's Dilemma

[Manstein]

Hi,
I am a High school student from India. I sat for the Entrance examinaton for the IIT's. The examination is said to be the most challenging and competitive for admission in an Undergraduate course in engineering.
I got my result, and i have not qualified. This has upset me greatly, since my learning experience was wonderful. I truly enjoyed learning Math, Physics and Chemistry at the high-school level for the examination and was confident that i would make it. I have not, probably because of the severe competition ( 25,000 candidates who have given up their night's sleep to prepare for this exam for the previous 2 or 3 years of their life. Of these only 4000 are lucky enough to be in IIT).
I really want to graduate from IIT. I am planning to give it another shot next year. But this means that I will have to wait a whole academic year. I am pretty sure that if i iron out the flaws in my preparation, I will get a great rank in the exam.
The Big question is: Is learning more important or the results?
Also, do you think I should stay back and give the examination again or should I join an engineering course at some other not-so-good college?

 

[Zanket]

In the US there is a test, the SAT, which is greatly used by the colleges (and even some employers) as a measure of intelligence. I think it is silly to place a high weight on a timed test of memory recall, because in reality for most jobs there is more time to decide things and you have access to references (e.g. books). Nevertheless, the SAT is an important hurdle for those going to college. That is, results are important.

I'd say that if you think you can pass the test the next time, do that. Taking a year to qualify is probably worthwhile. Just do not ever subscribe to the attitude that you are somehow less able than someone who has qualified when you have not. I cannot speak for India, but in the US there is plenty of opportunity for someone to succeed regardless of their SAT score. Ultimately employers care most about whether you can do good work, so in interviews I make a point to tell them that I will succeed at the task. My self-assurance on that puts me above the pack of people who may have a higher SAT score or other marks, but lower confidence to get the job done.

 

[mathwurkz]

I remember a friend telling me that IIT is opening up their admission to students in Pakistan. If that is true, then qualifying for their program will become much more competitive. If you have students not sleeping right now just to prepare for those exams, imagine what it would be like when you increase the number of people applying.

 

[David Watson]

What makes you think BITS, Pilani is a not-so-good-college? I qualified in IITJEE 2005 Main Examination and went to IIT, Kharagpur for counselling. I was getting B.Arch, B.Design in KGP, Roorkee and Guwahati. I AM NOT JOINING SOME STUPID COURSE JUST TO GET AN 'IITian' tag, WHEN I HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR MY DREAM COURSE IN THE MOST WONDERFUL INSTITUTE - BITS, PILANI. AND I DON'T GIVE A DAMN TO REPEATING IITJEE. You have got admission to BITS, Pilani. Man! consider yourself as fortunate any IITian. BITS, Pilani=IIT Kanpur=IIT Delhi=IIT Bombay>IIT Madras=IIT Kgp>>IIT Guwahati>IIT Roorkee. Don't make the worst mistake of your life by leaving Pilani. I have a friend who got 76 AIR in IITJEE and scored 400 in BITSAT, another friend got 205 AIR in IITJEE but scored 360 in BITSAT. I scored 337 and got 4058 AIR in IITJEE. Another friend got 289 in BITSAT and 4300 AIR in IITJEE See the huge ratio between rank diif. and marks diff. in IITJEE and BITSAT? Thats because there are 7 IITs+BHU+ISM(4600 GE seats) and 2 BITS - Goa+Pilani(1400 seats). BITS, Pilani can take on any IIT head to head. People don't dare to go to BITS Pilani for three reasons:
1) BITS is a private institute, IITs are overflowing with Government funds
2) Till last year, only the board toppers could dream of BITS. Hence the image of BITS as a destination eroded from the minds of the students with XII Board marks below 96% (norm.)
3) 3200 students got into the 7 IITs while only 800 got into BITS till 2004.(So getting into IIT was 3 times more probable than getting into BITS).
Heard of Sabeer Bhatia, CEO Hotmail; Vivek Paul, Wipro...all BITSIANs to the core. Finally a really mouthstopper for all IITian Brags - a remrkable number of professors, lecturers and administrators of IIT, even the DIRECTOR of IIT, Delhi - Prof. Kothari - are alumni of BITS, Pilani. WE, BITSIANS MOULD IITIANS! Why go to the distributaries when you can drink from the river?!

 

[David Watson]

PS: And as for the myth that you have to burn midnight oil to qualify IITJEE, I can disprove it outright. I never went beyond my CBSE XI/XII books and the AIEEE books. Yet I got through IITJEE. And far from burning midnight oil, I studied only 3-4 hours a day. Believe me, I swear!

 

[siddharth]

Congrats for getting your dream course in Bits,pilani.

What makes you think BITS, Pilani is a not-so-good-college?

I do not think the original poster referred to BITS, Pilani as a not-so-good college.

I have a friend who got 76 AIR in IITJEE and scored 400 in BITSAT, another friend got 205 AIR in IITJEE but scored 360 in BITSAT. I scored 337 and got 4058 AIR in IITJEE. Another friend got 289 in BITSAT and 4300 AIR in IITJEE See the huge ratio between rank diif. and marks diff. in IITJEE and BITSAT?

I have to point out that the comparision you have made is not completely valid.
This is because the IIT JEE exam is conducted in a single day where all students have to attempt the same question paper with a defined difficulty level.
Whereas, the Bits entrance exam being online, is held over a period of 2 months where a student can choose to attempt the exam at any time during this period. Because of this, the difficulty of each paper varies and it is possible that a good student gets a tough question paper and as a result gets lower marks.

BITS, Pilani=IIT Kanpur=IIT Delhi=IIT Bombay>IIT Madras=IIT Kgp>>IIT Guwahati>IIT Roorkee

While BITS, Pilani is indeed a very good institute I would like to know from where you got the above statistics.
According to the
The Times Higher Education supplement the top universities worldwide for IT and Engineering are
1 University of California, Berkeley, USA
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,USA
3 Stanford University,USA
4 Indian Institutes of Technology,India
5 Imperial College London,UK
6 California Institute of Technology,USA
7 University of Tokyo,Japan
8 University of Cambridge,UK
9 National University of Singapore,Singapore
10 Peking University,China

Also, here is a list of the top national colleges in India in Engineering
Source: http://www.indiaeducation.info/usefullinks/topcolleges1.htm

1 - Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
2 - Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
3 - Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai
4 - Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai
5 - Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
6 - Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
7 - Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
8 - BITS, Pilani
9 - Anna University, Chennai
10 - Delhi College of Engineering,

 

[ambuj123]

Wooo

Hello
well this post interested me as i suffered something similar to orignal author ofthis post.
first of all i would like to cleaqr somethings
there is nothing as cbse prep books or other books(you should take subjects with objective of learning not to crack some damn crap exams though you have to be in limits os syllabi of exam)
Though it's true that some of books prescribed in school for cbse are utter rubbush f**kin garbage filled with utter nonsense but you can very well manage with some good books which are well known internationally (Resnick halliday,Sears , Irodov,Solomons etc)
i made this huge mistake of making my focus to crack IITJEE rather than learning as a fun and something that lost my sleep went into depression now since i have changed my attitude my stress levels have gone down i am doing well in tests at par or higher level of IITJEE tests and enjoying my life.
secondly
you should levae result on god but give your full attention to studies your aim should be to study as much as you can.
thirdly
i suffered so much failures in past few months and years but i am thankfull to god that he put me in these situation.what is life without failure i have become more strong mentallyyou can realize true taste of success after failure so take failure as a step to learn your mistakes.
and hope for best most imporotant.
further if you are sure of yourself confident of yourself than do give it a try.
burning midnightoil is not necessary but a result of your love for subjects ex i have started loving organic ,physics ,maths so much that when i study i don't realize i had studied so much till my mother comes in.i study 12-16 hours a day but i do not feel pain in it becuase i love it.
bye

 

[David Watson]

Well said Siddharth.
I have 3 points to make.
1) The context of BITS Pilani in this thread comes, as Manstein is about to join BITS Pilani.
2) There is negligble variation in the difficulty level of BITSAT. A certain ratio is fixed for easy:standard:hard. And questions graded into these categories are stored seperately in the question bank. During the test, the questions are drawn from the bank in the fixed ratio. So people get papers of, more or less, same difficulty level.
3) I have no comments for the international rankings. As for the national rankings, which lunatic would rank IIT Kharagpur below Guwahati and Roorkee? This is ridiculous. Same ranking problem is being faced by BITS.
Anyway, exams are over, admissions will be over soon. Each one has got the college he was destined to get. No use arguing which institute is good or bad, any more. It would befit us to put up with what life has to offer and make best use of it.

 

[Manstein]

Hi everybody,
First of all, thanks for pointing out that BITS pilani is an excellent institute-comparable to IIT. It is really gratifying to know that you have made it to an institute which is very good, but never really wanted to go there at the time of taking the test...
I am, however, concerned about the IIT 'tag' as most people call it. Most students join IIT only because they want the name of the institute on their CV's. This disturbes me a lot. I feel bad when the successfull candidates with a bad rank talk boast about the fact that they will get the IIT stamp, and the others will have to rot away.
On a different note, does BITS get the same 'respect' as IIT does ? I am talking about foreign universities here. Do they treat you as they treat IITians.
I will be immensely thankful if anybody replies to my concerns.

 

[nirvana]

Wow

PS: And as for the myth that you have to burn midnight oil to qualify IITJEE, I can disprove it outright. I never went beyond my CBSE XI/XII books and the AIEEE books. Yet I got through IITJEE. And far from burning midnight oil, I studied only 3-4 hours a day. Believe me, I swear!

Hey dear David...cud you pls tell me what books did u use and which are the current good objective booksfor AIEEE/BITSAT .iam going to appear for the exams in 2007 and unfortunately will start my prepn this yr.pls boost up my spirits!

 

[Mahesh Kumar]

REspite for IIT aspirants...

HEy BRos! MY name is Mahesh and was very delighted to meet u ppl and do away with my physics basics. With my effort to cater to the needs of IITaspirants i have launched my site called www.crackiit.com

When i was going through the net i realized there wasn't any forum specially for the iit aspirants. So thought why not make a platform for them on the similar platform of physicsforums.. SO its my request to you guys to register in their and put in your precious suggestions,queries and anything which you want to share. Remember log on to this iit http://crackiit.com" ...See you ppl there and on physics forums too.I am sure IIT aspirants won't lack in Physics at least.

 

[maverick280857]

I absolutely agree with Siddhartha on this.

David, I don't think anyone explicitly referred to BITS.

Now that you are allowed only two attempts at JEE, it is better to give it your best shot in the first attempt and let exam variables decide your fate rather than sealing it yourself by a particular line of pessimistic thinking. If you cannot clear it then you should take the exam a second time if you are interested and can manage it with your college studies. I think it is a good idea to join some place after class 12 if you do not clear JEE, because you just have one more attempt and you shouldn't risk the extra year unless you are damn certain that JEE is your first choice and you wouldn't mind staying at home and in the process joining a college/IIT the following year as a junior whereas your classmates are a year ahead of you (if you can do with that, then forget about admissions!)

As for the exam strategies are concerned, everyone has their own. I don't think it makes sense to tell you to do this as opposed to that. If you are serious about the thing, you will evolve yourself and you will figure out what is right for you. I don't like to be advised by n people about how I should study. And it can be painful/damaging for reasons obvious to you.

If you can get through BITS or any NIT or any college where you think you can survive and study hard for the next 4 years (or 5 years depending on the program) then go for it if you want to join a college at all. Otherwise, sit back and isolate yourself and get down to the preparation for one more time forgetting the previous result but learning from your mistakes. You might have heard this n times, but you can excel anywhere provided you are hardworking and interested. Eventually it won't matter whether you are in IIT or any other place.

Get this notion out of your head that the other places aren't as good as IIT. For most people at your age, IIT is important not academically but as a brand-value to get through into management, public services and fantastic jobs. Either way, if you are serious about your department and have the determination to work hard you will carve your way irrespective of where you go.

Learning definitely is more important but you and I live in a result-dependednt society so to get in anywhere you have to take tests. So keep that in mind. I suppose the only time when learning is above results is when you are doing grad school (and don't count papers, conferences and deadlines as results). So until then, even in an engineering/science college you will be required to take exams, attend classes and work to please the system/everyone else. Thats part of life.

Bottom line: If I were you, I would consult my parents and find out if any of my academically-interested friends are planning to spend an extra year for JEE-prep and think about it in isolation before making a decision. But if staying at par with your classmates in terms of an academic year is important to you, then by all means join an institution and try to prepare for JEE on the side.

Best wishes!

 

[maverick280857]

I am, however, concerned about the IIT 'tag' as most people call it. Most students join IIT only because they want the name of the institute on their CV's. This disturbes me a lot. I feel bad when the successfull candidates with a bad rank talk boast about the fact that they will get the IIT stamp, and the others will have to rot away.

You are right, but I don't think any rank is "bad". In fact sometimes what you call a "bad" rank allows you to be more flexible and make the choices you would have thought about but would be restricted with a "good" rank Further, everyone is at an equal footing inside an IIT and ranks are things which evaporate into thin air as soon as academics begin. In fact, this would be true of all places.

On a different note, does BITS get the same 'respect' as IIT does ? I am talking about foreign universities here. Do they treat you as they treat IITians.
I will be immensely thankful if anybody replies to my concerns.

I personally do not know much about this but I suppose if you are good at the GRE/AGRE and your subject, you should be treated just like anyone from IIT who is at an equal footing as far as academics are concerned. Finally, are IIT students really treated as "the" people in grad school? No. They still have to take tests, have recommendations and do all the coursework that others have to...so technically speaking they are not given any more "respect"--as you would put it--than the other people. In research, why should all this matter anyway. I know guys who well placed in foreign univs and labs who didn't have an IIT degree but are very very good in their subjects.