Nobody Told Me Gate Score Does Not Guarantee IIT MSc Admission

GATE 2024, Physics. Score: 67.3. Rank: 156. Percentile: 97.2. I remember refreshing the results page and feeling a specific kind of relief, the kind that comes when months of work produce the number you hoped for. Then I checked the IIT cut-offs from the previous year and started calculating where I could apply. My list had six IITs on it. Three of them rejected me.

I am writing this because there is a very widespread belief among GATE aspirants that a high percentile essentially guarantees admission to a good program, and this belief caused me significant confusion and distress when the rejections came. Here is what I now understand that I did not understand then.

What Actually Determines MSc/PhD Admissions at IITs

GATE score is a screening tool, not a selection tool, at most top IITs. You need a score above a cut-off to be called for an interview. Once you are called for an interview, the GATE score's weight in the final decision varies enormously by department and by faculty, and at some IITs it essentially disappears. What replaces it: your undergraduate research experience, your statement of purpose, your interview performance, and very often, whether your research interests align with what faculty in that department are currently working on.

IIT Madras Physics, where I was rejected: the interview panel spent forty minutes asking me about my undergraduate research project. I had a good project but I had not thought carefully about how to articulate why it mattered or where it could go. The interview was the thing that eliminated me, not my score.

The Three Rejections and What I Learned From Each

IIT Bombay: strong GATE score, weak statement of purpose. I had written it generically about my broad interest in physics. The admissions committee at IITB, I later learned from a student who was admitted that cycle, weights the SOP heavily because they are making a five-year commitment to a person, not a number.

IIT Delhi: got to interview, got eliminated in the interview because I could not answer a specific question about quantum entanglement in a way that satisfied the panel. This was a content gap I should have identified and filled.

IIT Hyderabad — where I eventually enrolled — was different. The interview was conversational rather than adversarial. They asked what problems I wanted to work on. I had thought carefully about this. The answer I gave was honest and specific and it aligned with a paper that one of the faculty on the panel had published. I got in.

If you are preparing for IIT MS/PhD admissions through GATE: treat the score as a necessary but not sufficient condition and invest equivalent effort in your research statement and interview preparation. The score gets you into the room. Everything else determines whether you leave with an offer.