GATE and CGPA

My colleague in IIT-M, Niket Kaisare, talks about GATE, GRE and the flight to US. He says, "If someone is incapable of securing more than a bare minimum threshold (in GATE), s/he is likely to struggle in the grad school." This was my point in my earlier post regarding GATE. If someone is unable to score 15% in GATE (50th percentile in chemical engineering paper), should he/she be interviewed for the Ph.D program at all? He remarks, "In fact, in the students I have encountered, there seems no correlation between GATE score and performance in the courses." I do not what was the data set and how good was the correlation. I had taken the CGPA of the masters students in the department for ten years and tried to correlate it against GATE percentile. The graph below is based on the CGPA of masters students during the period 2001-2006 (six year period) with their GATE percentile.

There was no correlation between CGPA and with students scoring above 95 percentile in GATE. However, when I divided the students into three groups: percentile less than 85, percentile between 85 and 95 and percentile above 95, the CGPA had a strong correlation with GATE percentile. For example, there was no student who had a CGPA of more than 5.5 but with a GATE percentile of less than 84.5. There was only one student who had a CGPA of more than 6.5 but with a GATE percentile of less than 94.5. Also, there was only one student who secured a CGPA of less than 5.5 but who had a GATE percentile of more than 95.

Pay scales in IISc

There has been a lot of discussion in the comments section of my previous post on the pay actually obtained by professors in IIT/IISc. There has been confusion because the website of IISc and some other places advertise only the basic pay.

However, the scale without mentioning the allowances and other benefits is misleading. Please note the new sixth pay commission pay has not yet been fixed for faculty in IIT/IISc but it can be assured that it will not be less than that of UGC. Based on the document provided by IIT-M for pay fixation and by UGC, here are the details that a professor in IISc actually earns,

Basic + Grade Pay : 57,000 (52,000 for associate professor; 38,000 for assistant professor)
Dearness allowance (DA) as on 1 March 2009 (22%) : 11,000
House Rent Allowance, HRA (30% of B+GP+DA): 22,000
Travelling Allowance (TA): 3,200 + 15% of DA
Academic Allowance : 1,500
Telephone : 1,500

All the above are provided without submission of bills. HRA will be paid to employees who do not stay in quarters provided by IISc/IIT. It does not matter whether the employee is actually staying in an own house or paying rent. The travelling allowance will be paid to all employees even if they stay in the quarters.

The total of the above comes to around 90,000 for a professor and 60,000 for an assistant professor. 10% of the basic + GP is contributed by the institute and 10% is deducted from the salary for future retirement benefits. Thus, the pretax income is around 85000 and 55000 for a professor and assistant professor, respectively. The Dearness allowance increases based on inflation and increases by 6-7 percent every year. In addition, there is an increment of 3 percent every year.

In addition, they are benefits that are provided only if it is claimed. This includes children education allowance, subsidy for single girl child, Leave travel concession for the whole family every year,medical benefits to the family, travel money for attending conferences etc. If one counts all this, the cost to the institution (CTC) is around Rs. 15 lakhs per year for each professor. In addition, one can get fellowships that vary from Rs 60,000 to Rs 6 lakhs per year from DST/DBT, depending on the fellowships. In addition, if one is a fellow of two academies or has won the Bhatnagar award, one would get Rs. 1.8 lakh per year till retirement. Roughly 30% of the teaching faculty in IISc get these.

The amount obtained by consultancy also varies from faculty to faculty with some faculty getting close to Rs 20 lakhs per year. For consultancy, the faculty receives 60% of the amount while the institute takes 40% as overheads. This may be revised in the sixth pay commission.

Further, each faculty is given vacation for three months every year where he/she can travel/work anywhere and earn whatever money.

It is best to stick with CTC for comparison. One becomes a professor after 10-12 years after joining with a postdoc. This translates to 12-14 years after obtaining a Ph.D. How does this compare to pay scales in the rest of the government and industry?

Currently, professors are in the S-29 scale of 18,400- . After 10 years as professor, one can become a professor of eminence at the S-31 scale of 22,400-. Above that is the director scale (S-33) of 26,000 (fixed), which is equivalent to the secretary scale. This is the highest scale in IIT/IISc. Above this, there is only scale in the government, which is the cabinet secretary scale (S-34) of 30,000. This is the scale that a director general of CSIR, DST/DBT secretary (all technical positions) gets and is the highest in the government. Thus, a regular professor in IIT/IISc is three scales below the highest scale offered in the government.

In IITs (unlike the US), the salary for a professor in humanities or sciences or engineering is the same. This makes comparison of pay scales to industry difficult because the pay differential between these branches of study is considerable in industry. Based on this, I presume the CTC for a doctorate after 14 years of service would be around Rs. 25-30 lakhs per annum.

There is one more component that I should mention. The retirement age for all purposes is now 70. However, if I retire (hopefully !) from IISc in 2019 after 20 years of service at the age of 50, I will get pension for the rest of my life at 50% of the basic that I get at 2019. The pension will increase with increase in DA. Of course, this will not be applicable if one works in a private industry.

For the current employees of IIT/IISc: Arrears and the pay fixation in the new pay scale can be calculated from this document made by Dr. Ramesh of IIT-M. I know him when both of us were involved in GATE administration and software development. I can vouch for the thoroughness and correctness of his software !

Distribution of Marks in GATE

My last post discussed the actual marks obtained in GATE 2009 and the corresponding percentiles for several branches of engineering. My colleague, Abi, collected the data for metallurgy and posted it. Here it is (percentile-marks)

94.44-68.67
90.66-63
84.72-56.33
81.57-53.33
74.87-46

These marks are generally higher at every percentile level compared to chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electronics and civil engineering. Let us look at another major branch, electrical engineering,

88-20
92-22
94-25
95-26
96-27
98-34
99-38
99.8-48
99.9-55

The difference in the distribution of marks is obvious. EE is much more closely clustered than Chemical and mechanical, which are closely clustered than metallurgy. A mistake in one 2 mark question will set you back by 2.66 marks from the candidate who answered it correctly. Thus a large distribution of marks is desirable. Setting a paper like EE where scoring 22 marks lands you in the 92nd percentile is not good for separating the good from the excellent students.

Both my colleagues who set the EE paper and MT paper, respectively, are good friends of mine but let me go ahead and congratulate the colleague who set the MT paper and achieved a good distribution of marks.

Marks and GATE

Subsequent to my last post, I received a few emails inquiring about the actual marks obtained by the candidates and the corresponding GATE percentile. The GATE 2009 results were announced yesterday and the following are the percentile with the corresponding marks in chemical engineering.

75-22;
85-31;
90-36;
95-45;
97-49;
99-66;
99.9-73;
99.99-79.

Suppose you think this is an anomaly, let us look at major branches,

Civil engineering

72-22
80-26
88-31
92-35
95-41
98-49
99.9-60

Computer Science
80-21
85-24
87-25
91-29
98-44
99.9-62
99.99-73

Electronics and Communication

70-19
86-27
89-29
93-35
95-37
97-42
98-45
99-50
99.9-74

Mechanical Engineering

72-18
85-26
90-30
95-38
96-41
98-49
99.8-69
99.9-76

The cutoff for the M.E program in chemical engineering in IISc is higher than 99 percentile i.e., the candidate should have scored more than 66 out of 100 in the GATE exam. However, if the candidate has scored less than 1/3 of this (i.e.,22), (s)he is eligible for the Ph.D program !

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.

Second campus of IISc

It seems to be finally official that IISc will get 1000 acres of land in Chitradurga. While everybody would have been happy if the land was near Bangalore, one can understand the difficulty of the government in acquiring such land. Considering the large scale activities planned by IISc in the new campus, I would feel that even 1000 acres would be a little small. But it is a beginning !

What's in a name?

Apparently everything. There has been a considerable demand that IT-BHU be converted to IIT. I had previously thought that students would prefer joining IT-BHU irrespective of whether it was an IIT or not. After all, IT-BHU has been taking JEE students for a long time even before IIT-Roorkee started. However, I do see that the students who have qualified in JEE seem to prefer the new IITs, which have not even started and do not have land, faculty or any facilities, over IT-BHU. Thus, the name of IIT seems to matter much more than even the previous reputation, facilities or anything else of an existing institution.