The Indian Institutes of Technology are widely seen as symbols of academic excellence, social mobility, and national achievement. For many students, entering an IIT is the result of years of intense preparation, sacrifice, and competition through the Joint Entrance Examination. The IIT tag can open doors in technology, business, research, government, and public life.
Yet IITs are not socially uniform institutions. Beneath the common identity of being an “IITian,” there can be a hierarchy among students—especially between BTech students admitted through the IIT Joint Entrance Examination and students who enter through other routes. This division may not always be formally declared, but it can influence friendships, academic status, campus confidence, and perceptions of future success.
The IIT identity is not experienced equally
A BTech student admitted through the JEE Advanced route is often treated as the standard image of an IIT student. The admission process is highly competitive, and the student’s rank is frequently viewed as evidence of intelligence, discipline, and ability.
Other students may join IITs through different routes:
MTech students through GATE
MSc students through IIT-JAM
MBA students through CAT
PhD scholars through academic selection and interviews
Students in design, humanities, management, or other specialized programs
International students and students admitted through institute-specific processes
All of these students are part of the same institution. However, the social prestige attached to each group may differ. The BTech program often receives the greatest public attention, the largest campus visibility, and the strongest association with the IIT brand.
This creates an unofficial status order.
How the hierarchy develops
The hierarchy is shaped by several factors.
1. The power of the JEE label
JEE is one of the most visible and difficult entrance examinations in India. Because society places enormous importance on it, students admitted through JEE may enter campus with a strong sense of achievement. Their admission is often discussed by relatives, teachers, coaching centres, and the media.
Over time, this achievement can become more than an academic fact. It may turn into a social identity. Some BTech students begin to assume that entering through JEE makes them more capable than students who arrived through other examinations.
That assumption is not logically valid. Different programs test different abilities, and entrance examinations measure only a limited set of skills. Still, the reputation of JEE can produce a lasting status difference.
2. Age and campus culture
BTech students usually enter IIT immediately after school and spend four years together. They often form a large and visible community. Their activities shape hostel culture, student elections, festivals, clubs, and informal campus traditions.
Postgraduate students, by contrast, may be older, have professional experience, or arrive with a different academic background. They may spend less time in hostel activities or may live separate lives because of academic and family responsibilities.
This difference can lead to limited interaction. When groups do not mix regularly, stereotypes become easier to maintain.
3. Access to resources and opportunities
BTech students may receive greater attention from student clubs, recruiters, alumni networks, and campus events. Many companies recruit large numbers of BTech students, particularly in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, and related fields.
Postgraduate students may have excellent opportunities, but their pathways are often less visible. A PhD scholar, an MTech student, or an MSc student may be doing important research without receiving the same public recognition as a BTech student who receives a high-paying job offer.
The difference in visibility can be mistaken for a difference in ability.
4. Placement culture
Placements strongly influence campus status. A high salary package can become a public measure of intelligence and worth, even though it does not capture teaching ability, research quality, public service, creativity, or social contribution.
BTech students—especially from popular branches—often dominate placement discussions. Students from other programs may feel that their work is considered secondary if it does not lead to a prominent corporate offer.
This can affect self-confidence. Students may begin to see themselves through the eyes of the campus hierarchy rather than through their own abilities and goals.
The role of caste and class
The hierarchy within IITs is not limited to academic programs. It also intersects with caste, family income, language, region, gender, and urban background.
Many students from wealthy families have attended private schools, coaching institutes, and English-medium institutions. They may arrive with greater familiarity with technology, social networks, and campus culture. Students from rural areas or less privileged families may have equal academic ability but less confidence in social settings.
Caste also influences how students experience the institution. Affirmative action has enabled many students from historically excluded communities to enter IITs. Yet some students continue to treat reservation as proof that a peer is less capable. This attitude is unfair and ignores the unequal conditions under which students compete.
Admission through a reserved category does not reveal a student’s intelligence, work ethic, or potential. It reveals that the student qualified under a constitutional policy designed to address long-standing exclusion.
When caste prejudice and program-based hierarchy combine, the result can be especially damaging. A student may be judged by both their admission category and their degree program before anyone has understood their actual work.
Do BTech students always look down on others?
No. Many BTech students respect their postgraduate classmates, collaborate across departments, and reject status-based thinking. There are also BTech students who come from modest backgrounds and understand the pressure faced by students who do not fit the dominant campus image.
Likewise, students in other programs do not form a single group. Some may feel excluded, while others may be confident in their research, professional experience, or academic interests.
The problem is not that every BTech student behaves badly. The problem is that the institution can create conditions in which one group is treated as the default and others are expected to remain on the margins.
The cost of this class system
An internal hierarchy can have serious consequences.
It weakens collaboration
IITs are supposed to bring together people from different disciplines and backgrounds. If students socialize only within their own group, valuable partnerships are lost.
An MTech student may have practical experience that helps a BTech student’s project. A humanities student may understand the social effects of a technology better than an engineer. A PhD scholar may offer research knowledge that could improve a student club or startup.
Status barriers prevent these connections.
It creates unnecessary insecurity
Students outside the dominant group may constantly feel that they have to prove their worth. Instead of focusing on learning, they may worry about accent, college label, entrance route, or salary expectations.
This is particularly harmful at a demanding institution, where students already face academic pressure.
It reduces education to ranking
When admission route becomes a permanent measure of worth, education turns into a competition over labels. Students focus on who entered through the “hardest” examination rather than on what each person contributes after admission.
The purpose of higher education is not merely to sort people. It is to help them grow, think critically, and contribute meaningfully.
It reinforces wider social inequality
The hierarchy inside IIT can mirror the hierarchy outside it. Students who already have social and economic advantages may receive more recognition, while others struggle to be heard.
If the institution does not challenge this pattern, an organization created to promote opportunity may reproduce existing inequality.
What can IITs do?
Create mixed academic and residential spaces
Clubs, festivals, student projects, and hostel activities should include students from all programs. Interdisciplinary teams should be encouraged rather than treated as special exceptions.
Recognize different forms of achievement
Awards and public recognition should include research, teaching, social work, artistic work, entrepreneurship, technical innovation, and community engagement—not only placement packages.
Address discrimination openly
Orientation programs should discuss caste, class, language, gender, and program-based prejudice. Students should know how to report harassment and where to seek support.
Improve interaction between faculty and programs
Faculty members can help break stereotypes by designing courses, seminars, and projects that bring BTech, MTech, MSc, MBA, and PhD students together.
Change the language of campus life
Words such as “real IITian” or “just a postgraduate student” may sound casual, but they reinforce exclusion. Campus communities need to question language that ranks students without understanding their work.
What students can do
Students do not need to wait for the administration to solve the problem. They can:
Invite classmates from other programs into clubs and projects
Avoid asking people about their entrance route as a way of judging them
Respect different academic and career goals
Challenge jokes about caste, reservation, language, or degree programs
Learn from students with different experiences
Measure people by their conduct and contribution rather than their admission label
A student admitted through JEE is not automatically superior. A student admitted through GATE, JAM, CAT, an interview, or another route is not automatically less capable. Every examination measures something different, and no examination can fully measure a person’s intelligence or future.
A broader definition of merit
The idea of merit is often presented as if it were simple and objective. In reality, performance is shaped by access to coaching, school quality, financial security, family support, language, health, and social confidence.
This does not make achievement meaningless. It means achievement should be understood in context.
The more important question is not only, “What rank did you obtain?” It is also:
What did you overcome?
What have you learned?
How do you treat people with less power?
What do you contribute to your community?
Can you work with people who are different from you?
These questions provide a more complete understanding of merit than an entrance examination alone.
Conclusion
IITs can be places of extraordinary learning, but they can also reproduce the class divisions found in wider society. The divide between BTech students admitted through JEE and students from other programs is not inevitable, but it becomes powerful when campus culture treats one group as the natural centre of the institution.
The IIT identity should not be based on a single entrance examination. It should include every student who studies, teaches, researches, creates, and contributes there.
An IIT education is strongest when it expands people’s understanding rather than narrowing it into a hierarchy of labels. True excellence is not simply entering through the most celebrated route. It is using one’s opportunities with humility, fairness, and respect for others.
PS: Female students make up roughly 20% to 25% of undergraduate cohorts at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), resulting in a male-to-female ratio of about 4:1 to 3:1
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