Press release on admission of new students, 2018

Dated 6^th August, 2018 

IIT Bhubaneswar, established on 22 July 2008, strives to offer the best engineering education with unmatched novelties in curriculum.  Within a short span of incipience, IIT BBS has made rapid strides towards becoming one of the elite technology institutes of India spurred by sustained creation of knowledge and innovation, through high quality R&D activities and commitment to holistic education. The Institute aims to develop and pursue dynamic and flexible curricula designed to facilitate creativity and cognitive thinking among student through productive partnership with industries.  Students are exposed to a wide variety of activities through societies and clubs, involving liberal arts, design, dramatics, robotics, music, dance and sports, instilling them with social awareness, a spirit of innovation, entrepreneurship and a thirst for discovery.  All academic operations of the Institute are being carried out from the picturesque permanent campus at Argul which has rich historical background.

The Institute offers 6 B.Tech., 9 Dual Degree programmes, 5 M.Sc., 11 M.Tech programmes and Ph.D in its 7 Schools.  The admission for the academic year 2018-19 to the above courses took place on 20^th and 25^th July, respectively.  

Out of 369 offered B. Tech seats and Dual Degree programmes, 354 students (including 2 preparatory course completed students of last year) joined this time. Further, 5 students joined preparatory course at other institutes and they would be joining IIT Bhubaneswar next year.  Out of 95 offered, 75 students have joined M.Sc and out of 160 offered, 156 (including 3 sponsored from DRDO) students have joined various M.Tech programmes.  58 students were admitted to the Ph.D programme. 

This year, there is a steep rise in the number of seats got filled up in MSc, MTech and PhD programmes over the previous years by 7%, 15% and 95%, respectively.  To encourage girls to pursue higher studies, as per the directives of the Govt. of India, 19 girl students, who were offered seats on supernumerary basis have joined, over and above the sanctioned strength to various undergraduate courses to take the number of girl students admitted to 55, which makes it over 15%. There is general trend to opt for Computer Science, Electronic & Communication, Electrical Engineering, exercised by the students in undergraduate courses. From this academic year one new M.Tech course in Computer Science & Engineering with two sub-specializations viz: Cyber Security & Forensics and Data Analytics & Machine intelligence was introduced and students joined.    

Prof Raja Kumar, Director of the institute said that the steep rise in admission percentage is very satisfying and expressed that the trend will continue and vacancies will further come down in the coming years. This year, overall, there is rise in the total number of seats in the IIT system. In view of this, the closing ranks for admissions are expected fall somewhat in every institute. However, In spite of this rise in number of seats this year, at IIT Bhubaneswar better ranked students joined this year compared to last year by about 300 ranks. In fact, till two years back the closing ranks for admissions have been falling continuously. Last year, the institute recorded a first time improvement in ranks by a small margin. This time, the improvement is by as many as 300 ranks, despite increased seats and it is it is very significant. In MSc, MTech and PhD admissions too, the institute recorded significant improvement. Closing ranks of admitted students is the final acid test for any institution. Prof Raja Kumar expressed happiness that the institute could rise the confidence in the stake holders and it is a testimony for rising standards at the institute. The Director however said that this trend should continue further for the institute to join the senior IIT club in a few years and move further up towards global class.