What universities can I get in with a cumulative 3.1 GPA?

How do students from normal colleges in India with very mediocre to very low credibility get admitted into top universities in the US or Europe, but students with average GPA's and extraordinary overall development from Top-NITs get rejected by them?

• In the past and presently too I have encountered many students who are writing GRE and applying for MS. There is a huge gap between the ability of these students and what is expected of a masters entrant. I know many students who get selected who can't write 100 lines of code from scratch or who can't explain fundamentals of topics like OS/Networking and Databases. How do these students get admits but students from good NITs get rejects in spite of having decent GPA (considering the fact these are deemed universities) and pretty good projects. Doesn't NITs have a worldwide reputation or are they treated as just like any other engineering colleges in India.? NOTE : IITs have a worldwide recognition.

• Answer:

  Nits have no name outside India. If you are from IIT you can get admits very easily. Yes, even from the new IITs. It's the name that matters. But when it comes to non-IITs only GPA matters and whoever tells you it doesn't is living in a dream world.