BITSAT

BITSAT 2020

2020

I was so confident that I could get a good rank in the JEE Advanced that I had not invested enough time to prepare for BITSAT. A lot of my friends wrote BITSAT just as a backup plan and so did I.

After checking the syllabus on the day before the exam, I realised that some topics were in the BITSAT syllabus but not in the JEE syllabus. I remember that linear programming was something new to me. I also checked the question paper pattern and figured out that it was more of a speed test. I also learned about the bonus questions that appear after attempting all questions.

However, CSE in the Pilani campus only required 390 marks so bonus questions weren't mandatory. I figured if I do well it was an achievable target. I should've known better...

Unlike most entrance exams, 

    1) there were multiple days on which the exam was conducted 

    2) the score was displayed right after the test ended

I scored a disappointing 317. I realised that I just blew up my backup plan. 

As moderation, they gave me some extra marks and I presume my session was harder than average. With an additional 4 marks, my score became 321. I checked my options in BITS and realised that I was getting either EEE in Goa or ECE in Hyderabad, according to the previous years stats.

I thought to myself that it was alright, since JEE Advanced was yet to happen, something that I had been preparing for over 5 years unlike BITSAT which was less than a week. Little did I know that my JEE Advanced rank wouldn't get me anything I wanted. 

I soon found myself in the admission process for BITS, and towards the final iterations I got ECE in the Goa campus. Considering how the cutoffs had fallen compared the previous years, I had hoped that I would get a CSE in Hyderabad, because before all the exams, I had always wanted to do CSE. Unfortunately, ECE Goa was the farthest I went. 

Today (as of Jan 2023) I've been almost 3 years into the ECE Goa program. I've completed 5 out of 8 semesters and currently hold a 8.26 cgpa where the average for the department is around 7.2. I was one of the first 40 to get an IT internship in my batch of 880, and one of the first 5 among the non-CS students.

I think I have done fairly well. I am happy.