Why do students from universities and colleges like D. J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Mumbai University, Sastra, VIT, SRM etc. get better admits than similar profiles from better universities in India?

I dont think students from NITs, IITs, and BITS with better scores and profiles have a disadvantage over students from VIT and SRM. I have seen students with better GPAs from VIT, SRM get better opportunities than students from IIT/NIT/BITS with lesser scores on their transcripts, and comparable GREs and TOEFLs. You might be wondering how come the students from IITs/ BITS dont get extra points for being from among the top schools, irrespective of this.  The answer is : US schools like to give you a chance if you have potential. They may not fund you, but you will get a chance to try. Also, they like to have diversity in their program, and not have all the Indian students from one Indian university. It's fair right? Someone screwed up and didn't get into IIT/ BITS/ NIT. They work their ass off and get a good opportunity regardless of this, for their grad school.Whats the big deal here? We need to keep proving ourselves periodically all our lives - once success cannot give you a good life forever :)

From my experience I feel VIT and Mumbai University are overrated. I find more people from VIT getting into UT Austin, U of Wisconsin Madison etc.. than students from IIT kgp or IIT BHU. I heard from current MS students that Georgia Tech has some sort of craze for MU students. But CMU , GaTech does not value IITs or NITs as much as TAMU or RPI values. CMU (LNI) and Gatech (MS CS) are more of gre/CGPA score based whereas all California universities (esp CALTECH, UCSD, UCLA, UCB, Stanford), UMN, Cornell etc  revere IITs and not many from India get into these schools with just gre/toefl scores and CGPA. My views are purely from CS perspective and would differ for other departments

From what I can make out- these US schools don't want to admit too many from the same colleges and don't put as much weightage on university reputation as Indians do. Hell, half of them don't even know the rankings or average GPAs of these schools. They have problems of plenty. They think that the schools are close enough that they want to admit a few from each. As an Indian I'd think long and hard before I picked a guy from VIT over a guy from IIT, given identical profiles- I'd automatically add an extra point (Maybe 1.5) to the IIT guy's GPA out of my own prejudices. US schools probably don't do the same- they might think- 'well, we've got 10 IIT guys already, lets pick this other chap instead, lets not be elitist and biased' It is a bit of a pain for top college grads, since their GPAs will be relatively lower... they usually manage higher GRE scores (which doesn't help much)... but once they get in they do quite well.

It's not exactly true that students with better profiles from some of the top colleges don't secure better admits. Because they do. Although, it might be true that some really deserving students from these colleges don't secure an admit at great universities. But that being said, there's a difference between being more deserving and actually translating this into your profile. I think there are a few factors at play here that cause some more deserving students from top colleges to have less deserving profiles as seen by US Universities: GPA : When you are in some of the top colleges in India, you have to be at your best to maintain a good GPA as everything is relative, and you are really surrounded by some of the best minds in the country. You might beat me for saying this, but the mean GPAs in these colleges tend to be a bit lower than some other colleges that you mentioned because of a tougher competition and stricter grading system. I was in my 2nd year at BITS Pilani in 2010 and I remember that if you had a GPA above 8, you were doing absolutely great (which I wasn't btw)! LORs : Strong recommendations are very important to secure admits. In top colleges, on an average, a faculty member is contacted by a very large number of students (and alumni) for LoRs during every application cycle. This may not be the same in the non-top colleges. So professors in the top colleges have to be very selective if they want to write a strong LoR. Also, the professors in the top colleges have a lot going on around them so they can't afford to write many recos, at least strong ones.  Applicants might end up with a compromise on their LoRs. Number of applicants : A large number of students from top colleges do tend do apply to same US universities for same programs. Admissions committee of many universities don't want to fill in all of their seats from students of just 3-4 colleges. So now, you have to compete against applicants from your college and maybe you were more deserving than applicants from some other colleges, but that won't count under this situation. Off the top of my head, I could think of these 3 factors.  I think they are some of the major factors for some students from top colleges not being able to reflect their deservedness on their profiles and being rejected. The one's who secure admits do stand out during their graduate studies though.

Most of the guys in India are obsessed with their University! Unfortunately they let the university define them instead of the other way round....Only when they come to the real world do they realize that all these tags IIT/NIT/DJ will take you only so far. To your question specifically, almost each and everyone in my batch at DJ that pursued higher education abroad ended up at what I would call top notch colleges....the reason I think are a few - They generally tend to have better communication skills, they are hard working (DJ is a very competitive college) and do not depend on scholarships. Overtime alumni start crafting a reputation which has helped the likes of DJ in the US. For eg, One of my batchmates, known to crack all entrance exams, did not get through IIM the first year, then tried again the next year, got through and topped IIM-A throughout....ever since most IIM guys of that batch seem to have a new found respect for crazy DJ guys....it sometimes takes one crazy alum to mold perceptions

One thing in colleges abroad are that CGPA,Projects,GRE,etc are not the only factors that decide your admit. Do remember that students who don't get into IITs and the other top colleges of the country work their ass off to get into a top college abroad for their next step in education. Their statement of purpose,interviews and other factors would have definitely played a major role in deciding acceptance. IITs are obviously revered because they are the best colleges in India,but again cracking the JEE is not the only thing.

I honestly don't know what these Universities want. I know people from NITs with 3-4 research papers in Computer Science published in ACM conferences getting rejected. Even a friend from SPIT, Mumbai got rejected from Georgia Tech despite having a nearly 80% aggregate (which is considered brilliant) and a journal published paper. Just the other day, I met  girl from Fr. Agnel, Mumbai, who got into Georgia Tech on her first attempt. From her own admission, she has no papers and not an exemplary GPA. It seems Tech is biased towards Mumbai University and does not discriminate between colleges in teh MU system. Moreover, they seem to have an extra fondness for admitting girls while rejecting more qualified male candidates, simply to increase the women in STEM it would seem. If someone could shed some light on these strange happenings, I would be much obliged.