There are 2 steps in the admission, first being a written test, followed by a single 40-45 minute interview both in-person at the beautiful IITM Campus.
Direct-PhD applicants had their interview on the same day as the written test, or on morning of next day. MS applicant's interviews were held on the next day, unless somebody had other constraints. The cutoffs and more details available here.
Written Test Pattern: 30 MCQ questions in 2 hours with negative marking. The level of question were on par with GATE.
I appeared for the W2 test. The tests for MS and Direct-PhD applicants appeared for the same set of tests but separate shortlists.
MS W1 topics: (choose any 2 of 3 of the panels)
The exam will be based on core areas of Computer Science and Engineering, including C programming, digital logic, discrete mathematics, data structures, algorithms, computer organization/architecture, theory of computation, operating systems, database management systems, compiler design, and computer networks. In addition, there will be questions on analytical ability.
MS W2 topics: (only panel 1)
Theory of Computation, Data Structures, Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Combinatorics, Logic, Graph Theory, Linear Algebra, Probability, Analytical ability.
The 3 panels were:
1) Theoretical CS
2) Computer Systems
3) AI & ML
More details about the interview click here.
Here goes the complete details about the interview.
Prof. Shweta Agrawal reads my educational details and reads my SOP.
Asks me a couple questions from there to make me feel comfortable.
Then she asks me to choose 2 topics from the list and for each topic there were professors who are specialized in their respective domains who would ask questions.
More than 10 professors were present in the room.
Topic 1 : Discrete maths Set - Theory and Counting (Prof. Raghavendra Rao BV)
1. What is Bijective function?
2. If the 2 sets are the same and they are one one, are they also onto?
3. Can you Proof answer of 2?
4. What is countably inf and uncountably inf set.
5. Definition of countably infinite.
Topic 2: Graph theory (Prof. Nishad Kothari)
1. What is Coloring in graph?
2. What is 2-colorable?
3. What is a Bipartite graph?
4. Are 2 and 3 same?
5. Then, how can we convince someone a graph is not bipartite?
6. Concept of non existence of odd cycles came here, to show not bipartite.
7. What is Tree?
8. What is a Leaf edge?
9. Does a tree always have a leaf?
10. Apart from null graph does all tree have a leaf?
11. Can you proof statement in 10?
Additional Questions: (Prof. Aishwarya Thiruvengadam)
1. You worked on implementing threshold secret sharing, what was it? (mentioned in my SOP)
2. Follow up question about what else I did.
Then they asked me if I had any questions for the panel.
Hope this post has been helpful, please feel free to ask me questions or queries in the comments. 😄
But please don't ask me how my interview went or any other personal questions. 🙏🏻
(This post is also written without any AI help, so please excuse grammatical mistakes)
