Admission without GATE

As I written earlier, GATE has been officially removed as a requirement for applying for admission to the Ph.D program in engineering. This was done because the number of doctorates in engineering from IISc is roughly around 60, while that from IIT-B is nearly 120. There is a hope that this modification will lead to a surge of doctoral admissions in IISc.Thus the admission form reads,

"Candidates with BE/ B Tech/ M Sc or equivalent degree who may not have qualified in any of the above mentioned National Entrance Tests will also be considered for the Ph D program in Engineering."

The same was considered for admission to Ph.D in the science departments but that was shot down by the faculty of science. Therefore, candidates applying for Ph.D in the science departments have to still qualify in one of the national exams.

All my friends are all gaga about this. I was one of the very few people who protested against this move and even wrote a letter that was discussed in the Senate meeting. Though the advertisement reads that it is for Ph.D in engineering, candidates admitted to the program can quit after a master's degree after receiving scholarship for two years. Therefore, it is against the MHRD regulations of giving scholarships to only those master students who have passed atleast one national level exam.

Secondly, many of my colleagues that GATE is a difficult hoop while GRE is not and many bright students do not write GATE. I do not think GATE is more tedious than GRE but it requires preparation on the subject. You can not throw out an exam because it requires preparation !

Instead of removing GATE, I have been requesting that GATE be modified i.e., it should include section A, which is on english comprehension, english writing, analytical ability etc. (similar to GRE) and section B on the actual subject in engineering/science.

Sometime ago, Arunn Narasimhan wrote on GATE and how they may prevent good students from getting into graduate programs in India. Abi, in quoting him, says that "our institutions must take a step back from using entrance exams as the sole first-level filter, and try to incorporate other metrics in the selection process: performance in their university exams, consistency in academic performance, recommendation letters, etc." While I agree that entrance exams like GATE should not a sole filter, it should be a filter. The reason that we have entrance exams and do not trust marks in the university exams because they vary widely depending on the type and grade of universities. A student with a CGPA of 7 from IIT-M may be better than a student with a CGPA of 8.5 from one of the private deemed universities. There is simply no way one can compare these candidates unless you have an exam, which should act as a filter. The differences in the marks obtained in GATE by candidates who are in the 99.9 and 99 percentile may not be significant and thus admission should not be given or denied to one on this. However, this candidate would have scored much higher than a candidate who is in the 50 percentile.

Thus though I believe that scoring marks in either GATE or university exams do not translate directly to research skills, a minimum cutoff in both is necessary. Therefore, I had suggested that the admission be based on writing GATE but the cutoff for an interview call be reduced to say, 50 percentile. Qualification in GATE requires a percentile of more than 75 but now that GATE gives the actual marks as well as the percentile for all candidates who write the exam, we can call candidates who have not qualified but who atleast prepared and wrote the exam reasonably well.

In most cases, bright students are not opting to Ph.D in IIT/IISc because of the monetary benefits that is provided by the US universities. One is not sure to see a reversal of trend just because GATE is removed. Maybe I am wrong and hope that I am. After all, I also wish that a student who did not write GATE, got admission in MIT but actually wanted to join IISc now joins IISc in preference to MIT.