During my PhD admission, I used to search for PhD Interview experiences on web, but never got much help from it. Knowledge is what your share to people who need it. I believe this information may help many people applying for PhD at different IITs.
IIT Bombay
To all the optimistic people out there, here is your dream
college. IIT Bombay calls almost every candidate who applies for it (to give
everyone a chance). You can expect over 300 candidates coming for the admission
process.
First Round: Their
first round is a written exam consisting of 30 (might change this year)
questions. No MCQ, all the questions are
fill-in-the-blanks. They will give you a piece of code with some blanks, you
have to fill them. Emphasis is on Algorithms, Data-Structures and Discrete
Mathematics.
Second Round: If
you get shortlisted for the next round, you will feel a certain relief, as only
20-30 candidates qualify the written exam.
Second round is Advanced Test, most probability consisting
of subjective questions or programming questions.
Third Round: They
will shortlist only 5-10 candidates for the last round, which is Interview
round. No need to go there, if you’re not fully prepared. If you’re not
prepared, they’ll know!
IIT Madras
IIT Madras calls around 300 candidates for the admission
process.
First Round:
First round is a written exam consisting of 30 MCQ questions. The paper pattern
resembles GATE, with slightly higher difficulty level.
Second Round: You
need to perform really well in the written exam, as only 15-20 candidates
qualify it. They go directly to the interview round. They’ll have 3 Interview
Panels according to the research areas. You can select any two of them
according to your interest or MTech research area.
IIT Gandhinagar
In the last session IIT Gandhinagar called around 70
candidates for the admission process.
First Round:
Their first round is a written exam consisting of 30 MCQs. Emphasis is on
Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics, and Data Structures.
Second Round:
After the written exam, they shortlist around 8-10 candidates for the
Interview. The panel has cool professors; they won’t ask any formal questions.
All you have to do is to present the model of your research. They can listen to
you for an hour, you just have to explain the kind of research you have done so
far, and the kind of research you intend to do in future.
IIT Roorkee
IIT Roorkee calls as many as 300-350 candidates for the
admission process.
First Round:
Their first round is a written exam consisting of 100 questions (As far as I
remember). The difficulty level is slightly lower than GATE. Questions from every subject are asked in the
written exam.
Second Round:
They set a cut-off of 60% for the written exam. So, around 75-100 qualify it.
Second round is an Interview Round. As the number of candidates is around 100,
interviews will take 2 days.
Before the interviews, you have to give 3 areas of interest,
according to that you’ll be called by the panels. Some 8-10 professors are
available in each panel, but only the professor working in your desired
research area will ask questions. You need to satisfy them with your answers.
Do not try to confuse them. Be simple as much as you can.
IIT BHU
IIT-BHU calls around 150 candidates for the admission
process.
Candidates from CFTI with 8.0 or above CGPA are eligible to
directly to the second round.
First Round: Their first round is a written exam, which
might contain 50 questions from every GATE subject. The difficulty level is
same as GATE. There is no negative marking, but you have to secure 60% marks to
qualify this test. But candidates who qualify written exam have very high
chances of getting selected. From last two sessions, only 3 candidates are
qualifying the written exam, and every time they all were selected.
Second Round: The second round is an Interview Round. They
can ask anything. With anything, I mean anything!
IIT Mandi
IIT Mandi calls around 50-75 candidates (varies session to
session) for the admission process.
First Round:
Their first round is a written exam consisting of some 50 MCQs. The difficulty
level is not that high. I attended the admission process in the last session,
almost everyone qualified the first round.
Second Round:
Second round is an interview round, which you will love. They will start from
basic mathematics questions such as set theory, Venn diagrams, probability and
move forward with data structures and algorithms and questions on your research
area.
Since IIT Mandi is situated near Himalayas, they have plenty
of projects with huge grants. After the interview, they might offer you the
position of Project Associate on an ongoing project. If they offer you that,
please take it. That is really an awesome thing, which might open the gates of
foreign admissions.
IIT Guwahati
IIT Guwahati calls around 100-150 candidates for the
admission process.
First Round:
Their first round is a written exam with moderate difficulty level. All MCQs.
Second Round:
They will shortlist around 20 candidates for the Interview Round. You need to
prepare a 10 minutes presentation on any topic. After that they will ask
questions based on your presentation and some data structure questions.
IIT Bhubaneswar
IIT Bhubaneswar calls not many candidates. In the last
session they called 17 candidates for the admission process.
First Round: The
first round is a written exam, consisting of 10 subjective questions. You may
need to write theory.
Second Round: In
the last session, they shortlisted only 1 candidate for interview round, I was
not him.
My name is Shivang Agarwal. I am currently pursuing PhD at IIT (BHU) Varanasi. I have created this blog to share the information which may be useful for the candidates applying for PhD or Masters at IITs, NITs, or IIITs,
I request my friends to collaborate with me and share their Interview Experiences.
Please follow this blog to keep yourself updated with latest news about admissions. I will keep posting such useful stuff.
