Factors You Should Consider Before Joining any College

Hello again, I am Yash Bhusare, student of IIT-Madras, First of all, congratulations for your performance in JEE Adv/Mains. Two years ago I was also in the same situation as you are now, I was also confused. Which college should I join? Which branch should I take? What should I prefer college or branch? These questions kept haunting me.
So I am going to share my experience with you in this blog. I am going to list all the factor you should consider before joining a college. A guide for choosing the best college for you.

    Take a mug of coffee and a paper and relax for a moment. Make a list of colleges and branch which you are considering (this can help - https://yashbhusare.blogspot.com/2018/05/opening-and-closing-rank-of-iits-and.html) and write the following point in front of that college.

Branch Of Study - If you have interest towards any specific branch then this should be your topmost priority. But do get an idea of the branch which you are considering, You can refer syllabus of that branch, and I will also suggest you talk to someone who is actually studying in that branch, and tell him/her why do you want to join that branch. (what can you expect from any branch this can help). Also, consider what you want to do after 4/5 years. If you want to do MBA then try for best college which you are getting (Old IITs). But get an idea of the branch.

Branch Change - Some of may not know this, but you can actually change your branch after first sem or year (Depends on IIT). But do research about this as some colleges don’t allow branch change for some branches. But don’t take some random branch based on this, It's not an easy task change the branch, as every other person on the campus wants to chill for some days. And you also have to explore the college. So don't rely on branch change. (If you want to know more about branch change and how should you study for changing branch then let me know in comments section below.)

Infrastructure - Some colleges have India's best infrastructure and some don’t even have their own campus.  Some colleges have their hostel away from campus (Temporary campus) but a bus is arranged from hostel to campus (temporary). You should also consider this before joining any college.

MHRD/QS ranking - the Rank system can be misleading so don’t blindly believe on them, and don’t choose a college just based on MHRD rank. Let's say college A gets 9th rank and college B gets 15th rank, It can be the case that branch of your choice is better in college B than college A. Rank is based on various factors like trees to campus area ratio, attendances, accessibility for disabled people, etc. Some of the factors may be not relevant to you, and that can be the reason college A gets better rank than college B. Inquire how is the branch of your choice in that college. (you can either ask questions on Quora or in this Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/jeeprep/)

Placements - Well this can be very misleading too, DON’T ever compares the percentage of the student placed and highest package offered in college, number of companies visited college as this data can be very misleading. Things are very different for the different branch, so talk to the people from placement cell of respective college to get more information about average package and companies (You can contact them on Facebook). Both IITs and NITs will have best companies for recruitment (but keep in mind that if Google/Microsoft comes in some college that doesn’t mean that they are going to take a student from that college if they don’t find a suitable candidate they won't take any). Here I would like to add one more thing that most of the core companies don’t offer the high package as compared to the non-core.

         Most of the students from research-oriented branch go for higher studies or for non-core jobs. So have an idea of what you want to do after 4/5 years if you are not sure then that’s okay, but if you have some plans then consider them. (like if you want to do MBA after 4/5 years then placement won't matter to you).Also, alumina supports a lot on placement, so consider alumina support while taking the decision.

Location, Food - Location can be very important for some of you guys. If you are a person who easily feels home sick, then you should take this into account. I will list the point which will be affected by Location of college.
1. You can go home for short holidays
2. If you know the local language, you can roam slightly easily outside the campus. Inside campus, most of the shopkeeper can speak English so it won't be inside the campus, and if you are in the north side then you can always speak Hindi.
3. If you choose college within your state then you can easily get your favorite food.
4. Cultural activities will be slightly oriented towards the home state.

Keep this points in your mind and then take your decision, no one can tell you which is perfect for you.

Do a research about both college and branch before joining.
Thank you for reading, and if you like this post, share it with your friends.

Best Of Luck !!

Cheers!!