NATA Counselling

The Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) of Baroda is a decent university. It depends what you want to study and all the departments will not be equally ranked. I ready somewhere (cannot provide reference) that it ranks among the top 10 universities for arts in India. Its engineering branch, though not highly ranked, is also pretty good especially in Gujarat. Many of my friends studied engineering there and are currently doing very good in their professions. Good companies, including multi-nationals, recruit from MSU. My friends got placed in Cognizant and other IT companies. One of them went on to do M.Tech at IIT-Bombay after B.Tech from MSU. Studies-wise, the grading system was tough. The highest percentage would be in low 80's, no CGPA system as of 2007. But I heard the teachers are very knowledgeable. If the question has been asked from a perspective of ranking so that one can make a decision on which college to attend, I would definitely give it a good rating. Baroda is a very good city to live, has a good cultural history, good schools for kids and also has heavy industries for job prospects. I do not know how the current situation is at MSU (my experience is from '00-'07), but I believe institutions take a long time to change. The university is very old, but many times that is a positive factor about educational institutions. Of course, my bias is towards MSU although I did not study there myself, but because I like the city of Vadodara.

There is no common counselling organized by the COA or NATA. Each state carries out its own counselling based on your 12th percentage, NATA score etc. So you will have to do your research, see if the government colleges of the state you're interested to study in have all India quota seats or if you satisfy their domicile requirements etc. It's a very tedious process, you will have to visit the DTE website of that state, read up on all the eligibility criteria, see if any additional exams are required to be answered, check out the application dates etc. At times the websites are not updated and do not provide sufficient information. You will have to call or visit their DTE office to clarify.