How to get into BITS
(This article appeared on AOL website by a BITS Goa student. It is being copied here to help you as I felt its a nice written article about BITS admissions.)
BITS Pilani is ranked the best private engineering college institution in India. And yes, it is better than the new IITs, at least, that is what we BITSians like to believe. And if you ask them, they will tell you that it is the best place to be in. And no, I am not talking about the mother campus only. I am speaking for all three campuses when I say this. BITSAT is something which gets you into one of the three campuses- Pilani, Goa or Hyderabad. BITS Dubai looks only at your class 12th grade sheet, so if you are planning on going there, give your Board exams seriously. Not that you can get into the Indian campuses without your Board marks. BITS require a minimum total of 75% in your class 12 PCM marks. So in any case, your class 12 marks are important.
Once you've achieved that, the next hurdle is BITSAT itself. It is also the last. This year it starts on 14 May. If you have gone through the cut-offs, you will find that you have to get in excess of 320 to get one of the most sought after branches at Pilani, the college that everyone dreams of. That means you have to get at least 106 questions correct out of the 150 that appear in the test. Since you can do some wrong, and there is negative marking, you should answer 120 questions correctly to be on the safe side. Only if you do that can you safely say that you truly cracked BITSAT. Otherwise you can opt for Goa or Hyderabad.
Now something about the test. It is an online test, so if you are not accustomed to giving quizzes online, or using your mind while looking at a computer screen, better try giving some sample papers on your PCs just to get a hang of it. It is not advisable that BITSAT is the first test that you ever give on a computer. The test had 45 questions from Mathematics, 40 each from Physics and Chemistry, 15 from logical reasoning and 10 from English, as of last year. Since all of them carry equal marks, you should answer the section you are most comfortable with first, then go on to the tougher ones.
As far as preparing for the test goes, you can't be selective in the topics you cover. Try covering the whole syllabus. Students have a general tendency to skip the portions which are not included in the JEE or AIEEE syllabus when they study for BITSAT. Don't commit this mistake. All topics mentioned in the syllabus are equally important. You do get free time after JEE and AIEEE which you can utilize to cover these topics, if you haven't gone through them earlier. Reasoning is one such topic which is asked in BITSAT. Make sure you have at least your basics right as far as reasoning goes, it can really boost your score if you do it right.
Avoid making wild guesses. Don't be driven by the motivation that you have to attempt the 12 bonus questions, come what may. Vidurath, a Mechanical Engineering second year student at Goa says, "I answered all the questions, even the bonus ones. And I got many more questions wrong than right among the ones I just guessed. That lowered my score." So, don't answer the bonus questions just for the sake of answering them. Answering the 150 alone properly can make you emerge victorious.
The interface of the test is usually user friendly. You can go back and forth among the questions, you can mark questions for reviewing later and you can also see number of questions you have not attempted. And no, you don't have to do mental calculations- you are given a rough notepad for working out the problems. And when you end the test, you are told your BITSAT score. You get a fairly decent idea of where you are going to end up, if you have the past year cut-offs in your mind.
Once you get a decent score, you wait for the iterations, which are usually three in number. You may slide up to a higher preference in subsequent iterations, you may not. Some who don't get any allotment in the first instance may get lucky the next time. Don't be disappointed if you end up with a dual degree. It's an actual engineer's degree that you get after completion of your course, contrary to the notion most of you might have. That is because all dualities are allotted a core engineering branch at the end of their first year based on their CGPA.
That is all. You are now ready for college life.
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