***PhD Interview Experiences (CSE) IITs***

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.

Check out the list of Old IITs inviting PhD applications!

Check out the list of New IITs inviting PhD applications!

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.

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