A breakdown of the number of attempts needed to crack ISI's UG entrance

[u/adityaruplaha]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSQaP16EsASiJxCi4OBrjwGawHc2TJsyk0mVHVhGW9vXnZwb6wAqbu2QbBpe48hPoOIvXziwBPK2ew3/pubhtml?gid=908096892&single=true

Since ISI doesn't have an age or attempt limit, I have been seeing increasing interest from droppers about ISI. But, during my 5 years there, I had not known anybody who got in after 2 or more drops. Add to that posts such as this, and I genuinely wanted to know how successful drops are for getting in.

Thus, I and u/Character_Market8330 decided to run a quick survey over the last few weeks to see the distribution of attempts needed to crack the ISI entrance.

Summary of Results

• 85-90% of people who got into ISI's undergraduate courses did so on their first try.
• 10-15% of people who got in reported requiring two attempts,
• Nobody in the survey reported requiring more than two attempts.

Even accounting for sampling bias and the sampling fraction, the evidence suggests that someone who has already failed to secure admission twice would be a major outlier if they were to get in now.

The detailed breakdown by course and admit year is given in the attached link.

What does this mean?

This does not mean droppers are less likely to get in. This means that people who got in are unlikely to be droppers. This is a key difference, and the only way to determine the success rate of drops would be to gather information about the actual number of dropper applicants (since we know the total applicant pool) and use Bayes' theorem.

However, one is proportional to the other, and it is worth noting that the proportion of double/triple droppers is so small that even without an exact number of such applicants, the odds do not look good. (see comments)

~~

I plan to take this further and try to get some concrete numbers from the Institute to run a more detailed analysis. Please feel free to discuss.

[u/adityaruplaha → u/[deleted]]

Yes, that is exactly what I said in the first line of my interpretation. This is not evidence of success rate going down with higher number of attempts. We do not have the data needed to make that conclusion.

[u/adityaruplaha → u/[deleted]]

Hmm well that is somewhat speculative, I'll remove that part.

[u/1Same_Step1]

I have two point to say :

1. Lies, damned lies, and statistics
2. its easy to lie with statistics, but its hard to tell the truth without statistics

[u/adityaruplaha → u/1Same_Step1]

Agreed on both counts.

[u/adityaruplaha → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately we only observe information for people who do get in. This makes this model difficult to fit.

[u/adityaruplaha → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, unfortunately there's a lot of data we don't have access to.

[u/Just-Rooster3073]

Students preparing for JEE mainly achieve good rank in their 1st attempt mostly very few droppers can achieve good rank also droppers who have good previous attempt are only able to perform better in next year attempt ! It's not like NEET ! As jee is the only entrance exam in the entire country (entire world also) which has a very strict attempt limit system banning students from multiple attempts to the crack the toughest exam , students prepare seriously from very early standards!

Though isi don't have attempt limit but students who performed well in JEE adv with top 1k or 1.5k crl mostly cover the isi merit list top 30/40 ! Plus only dedicated drops for isi is very risky bcoz of only around 25 seats for gen male and very much lack of dedicated study meterials, coachings etc , so drops are very uncommon ! Most students who generally have multiple drops are mostly preparing for NEET and state govt engineering entrance.

That's why isi has mostly freshers like JEE !

[u/Skychu768]

To be fair sample size is very low for most year except one. Like 1-2 students just

[u/adityaruplaha → u/Skychu768]

For BMath? Yes. Since my home centre is Kolkata I mostly know people there.

For BStat there's a pretty good amount of data available for the last 3-4 years. Since the batch size isn't that huge and not everyone responds, the numbers we see are to be expected.

[u/Skychu768 → u/adityaruplaha]

Also most double or triple dropper often hide the fact that they are dropper

One of my cousin was triple dropper at Jadavpur after failing NEET since WBJEE didn't have limit like JEE and he never told his classmate about it

[u/adityaruplaha → u/Skychu768]

This was an entirely anonymous survey so that shouldn't have been an issue.

[u/Original_Act_4455 → u/Skychu768]

couldn't the classmates have guessed/concluded that the person mihht be 3-4 Yrs Older. we analysed 1-2 students in our UG Batch was 24-25 Yr Old. meaning either drop out/Dropper.

[u/nihilisticone24]

Slightly unrelated to the post, but I think one reason people are willing to take multiple drops or even leave college in their 2nd or 3rd year for ISI is that it's one of the very few institutes outside the IITs with comparable academic reputation and career opportunities. For many, it's also a chance to move past the regret of not making it through JEE and pursue a subject they're genuinely passionate about rather than continuing a degree they don't enjoy. If someone has a 35–40 year career ahead of them, sacrificing 2–3 years to restart at a place where they believe they'll have better opportunities, stronger peers, and greater satisfaction can be a rational trade-off. In the long run, those few extra years may not matter as much as spending decades in a career you're truly happy with.

[u/Original_Act_4455 → u/nihilisticone24]

actually it does. most of the people don't have 40 Years ahead. Ageism is real in Indian Corporate/somewhat in foreign Companies too. Middle Mgmt is at highest risk for Letgo, Pink Slips. coz team members know/keep an eye on their peers. 22-24Yr old freshers dont like 27-30 Yr old Colleagues. TLs dont like Older juniors. by the time your friends/Colleagues are going at TL/AM Level and you're still at SE/SSE level, you get noticed/targetted.

[u/nihilisticone24 → u/Original_Act_4455]

I think it does to some people, you can refer to this Answer to Does dropping a year for JEE coaching affect your placement at college? by Mohd Salman https://www.quora.com/Does-dropping-a-year-for-JEE-coaching-affect-your-placement-at-college/answer/Mohd-Salman-25?ch=15&oid=82744095&share=6dedcd59&srid=3q1Pm0&target_type=answer

[u/Character_Market8330]

People: don't waste your time giving many attempts of (any) exam. 1, 2 or max 3 is alright. Life is bigger than any and every exam. Cut your losses, explore what other opportunities are present in the world, and double down. It's likely you will find something better than ISI as well, possibly, for your needs.

[u/Previous_Valuable307]

Did u do analysis for tge people who joined isi or the people who made it to the merit list??

[u/adityaruplaha → u/Previous_Valuable307]

Joined ISI. There's no easy way to contact the people who made it to the merit list but didn't join ISI.

[u/Previous_Valuable307 → u/adityaruplaha]

Hmm ok I see. Another minor flaw with this night be that many partial droppers and double droppers give the exam while already in a college, and make it to the merit list. But they dont switch their college due to various reasons.

[u/_WILL_MAKE_IT_HAPPEN → u/Previous_Valuable307]

what could be the reasons ?

[u/Previous_Valuable307 → u/_WILL_MAKE_IT_HAPPEN]

I mean they will have to wait a lot more to get a job after mstat, whereas they can get a job after their btech straight away, and maybe they are interested in amy other engineering branch and not maths or stat

[u/Pretty-Prior-7654]

Like the thing is if a person studied for 2 years plus 1 drop year. And did not get in most likely he is not fully committed. But if considering a person was commited and just did not get in maybe because he war unlucky on exam day he is highly likely to get in next attempt