Following last year's trend, JEE topper leaves IIT to join MIT, citing better opportunities overseas
JEE Advanced 2025
, has chosen to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States instead of joining any of the Indian Institutes of Technology. Devesh is following a growing trend among India's top engineering talent opting for international universities, especially
MIT
, a TOI report stated.
Not the first to make the shift
Last year's
JEE Advanced topper
, Ved Lahoti, who scored 352 out of 360 — the highest in recent years — is also leaving
IIT Bombay
after one year to join MIT on a fully funded scholarship. In earlier years, students like Chirag Falor (JEE 2020) and Chitraang Murdia (JEE 2014) made similar decisions. Murdia spent a year at IIT Bombay before moving to MIT and later completed his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
"It seems like MIT trusts the rigour of JEE Advanced and the promise of our Olympiad stars," said Prof Vijay Singh, former professor at IIT Kanpur and retired faculty at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education.
Olympiad medals open global doors
Devesh Bhaiya has an academic record beyond the JEE rank. He has won three gold medals — two at the International Junior Science Olympiad (2021, 2022) and one at the International Chemistry Olympiad in 2024. He also received the Bal Shakti Puraskar in 2020. At the age of 12, he authored a paper on light pollution.
Though Devesh had already secured admission to MIT in March 2025, he still took the JEE Advanced exam as a backup option.
Live Events
You Might Also Like:
JEE Advanced 2025 Results and Toppers List: Rajit Gupta from IIT Delhi zone tops the exam; Check names of toppers here
A growing list of students transferring
Ved Lahoti said, 'I'm fully satisfied with IIT Bombay. But it lags in research. Globally, it's not even in the top 100. So, I applied to MIT — and when it came through, I took it. A lot of students have taken transfer to MIT and when I asked them, they said the transfer was truly worth it.'
Several other top rankers have taken the same route. Nishank Abhangi spent a year at IIT Bombay in 2019–2020 before moving to MIT. Mahit Gadhewala, who secured All India Rank 9 in 2022, also transferred after one year at IIT Bombay.
According to Prof Singh, the first student to set this trend was Raghu Mahajan. He studied at IIT Delhi for a year, moved to MIT, completed his PhD at Stanford, and is currently spending a year at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru. "He was very committed to coming back to India," said Prof Singh.
Ved Lahoti expressed a similar sentiment: "I have no plans to settle in the USA."
You Might Also Like:
Kota's Rajit Gupta, first JEE topper from the IIT coaching hub, shares secret success mantra learned from his mom
(The article was originally published in TOI)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
7 hours ago
- Business Standard
Four IITs named centres of excellence under critical mineral mission
The government on Friday said it has recognised seven esteemed institutes, including four IITs, as Centres of Excellence under the National Critical Mineral Mission. The move follows the nod accorded on Thursday by the Project Approval and Advisory Committee. The centres of excellence will undertake innovative and transformational research to strengthen and advance the country's science and technology capability in the area of critical minerals. Critical raw materials form the crucial supply chain for emerging sectors of clean energy and mobility transition, in addition to advanced technology and strategic sectors like electronics, defence and space. The other institutes are IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad, IIT-ISM Dhanbad, and IIT Roorkee, the mines ministry said in a statement. Each CoE will operate as a consortium, on a hub-and-spoke model, to leverage R&D in critical minerals and pooling the core competence of each constituent under one umbrella. The Ministry had earlier called for proposals from eligible institutes, and had undertaken an elaborate two-tier evaluation and approval process. The National Critical Mineral Mission is a government initiative launched to enhance self-reliance in the critical minerals sector. It was approved by the Union Cabinet in January with a seven-year implementation period from 2024-25 to 2030-31. The mission aims to boost domestic production, reduce import dependence, and promote exploration and responsible sourcing of critical minerals.
Time of India
10 hours ago
- Time of India
Could AI replace expert mathematicians? Here is what OpenAI's Noam Brown says
In a recent YouTube interview with Sonya Huang of Sequoia Capital, a candid conversation unfolded around a topic considered far-fetched: Whether artificial intelligence could eventually replace expert mathematicians in one of the most intellectually demanding tasks, creating International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) questions. Sitting across from Huang were Alex Wei, Sheryl Hsu, and Noam Brown, a lean three-person team at OpenAI that had already made headlines for achieving gold-level performance on IMO problems. Yet the next challenge, Brown suggested, was not solving Olympiad problems, but creating them, and he believes the gap is closing fast. OpenAI's IMO Team on Why Models Are Finally Solving Elite-Level Math No fundamental barrier: What OpenAI's progress reveals 'These models are really good now at solving these problems,' Brown said during the interview. 'Coming up with them is, you know, still a challenge. But I think it's also worth noting the incredible pace of progress that we're seeing.' Brown's optimism comes with perspective. Not long ago, large language models (LLMs) struggled with basic arithmetic or step-by-step reasoning. Today, cutting-edge systems from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic are not just solving pre-existing questions, they are passing graduate-level math tests, producing proofs, and engaging in mathematical dialogue with a level of consistency once reserved for top-tier students. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 11 Foods That Help In Healing Knee Pain Naturally Learn More Undo 'Originally when LMs came out, it was like, well, how do we get them to reason? And then we got them to reason. But then how do we get them to reason on hard-to-verify tasks? And now they can reason on hard-to-verify tasks,' Brown explained. 'I think the next hurdle is going to be, okay, how do we get them to come up with these novel questions? Even creating an IMO question is a challenge, and it takes a lot of expert mathematicians a lot of work to do that. But I don't see any fundamental barriers that block us from getting there.' This perspective lands at a time when students across the world are increasingly being taught to view AI not just as a tool, but as a peer in the learning process. If models can eventually generate new problems at Olympiad difficulty, it would radically shift how competitions, instruction, and even research are designed. The role of mathematicians might shift from creation to curation, with AI generating hundreds of complex problems and human experts selecting and refining the most promising ones. To be clear, Brown is not suggesting AI will instantly replace humans at the chalkboard. But his remarks reflect an evolution of AI's relationship with formal disciplines like mathematics. What was once the exclusive domain of human cognition, like proof construction, conceptual abstraction, and elegant question design, is now being nudged forward by machine capabilities. One notable example came last year, when AlphaGeometry, a collaborative project between Google DeepMind and New York University's Computer Science Department, demonstrated notable success in solving Olympiad-level geometry problems, correctly answering 25 out of 30 past IMO questions. It signaled how far AI models had come in mastering not only mathematical reasoning, but also structure and abstraction. What this means for students and the future of mathematics For students and early-career researchers, Brown's comments are both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge lies in keeping up with systems that are evolving at unprecedented speed. The opportunity is in collaboration, using AI to explore alternate solutions, generate variants of problems, or simulate how different levels of difficulty can be introduced in question design. For example, while designing IMO questions requires originality, structure, and relevance to curriculum, an AI model trained on thousands of previous problems, university-level texts, and proof strategies may soon develop a framework for generating candidate questions. Human evaluators might still be needed to ensure rigor, avoid redundancy, and introduce pedagogical value but the heavy lifting may no longer require weeks of manual effort. Importantly, Brown's comments also reinforce a broader lesson for Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. The future of work and innovation is not only about what AI can do but how humans decide to work alongside it. In mathematics, a field revered for its purity and precision, AI may not replace the joy of discovery, but it might make that discovery faster, more accessible, and more iterative. As classrooms integrate AI tools into daily learning, and competitions begin exploring model-generated question banks, students entering the field of mathematics in 2025 may find themselves solving questions that were not written by teachers or mentors, but by a machine trained on their thinking patterns. Still, as Noam Brown puts it, 'There's always a next hurdle.' Right now, that hurdle is originality. But the line between what machines can solve and what they can create is fading quietly, rapidly, and without fundamental barriers. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here. Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
India Today
13 hours ago
- India Today
Isro begins 10-day analogue mission in Ladakh to simulate life in space
India's space ambitions took a major leap as the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) kicked off the country's first analogue mission in Ladakh, simulating conditions to prepare for future human space at 14,000 feet in the cold, barren outpost of Tso Kar, this effort tests both the technology and human endurance essential for long-duration missions beyond plans to launch astronauts to space by 2027 and to the Moon by the year 2040 as its space program The mission, dubbed Himalayan Outpost for Planetary Exploration (Hope), features an advanced, inflatable habitat designed to replicate life-support systems that astronauts would rely on during with hydroponics for food, sanitation systems, and a self-sustaining kitchen, Hab-1 will house a hand-picked two-member 'analogue crew' living in utter isolation for ten days. These analogue astronauts a planetary science graduate and a PhD researcher, were chosen from 135 applicants to simulate the psychological and physiological stresses of a real Moon was selected due to its extreme isolation, high-altitude terrain, and lunar-like geology, providing an environment where oxygen levels are just 40% of those found at sea has unique geological characteristics that closely resemble Martian and lunar landscapes. Its cold, arid conditions and high altitude provide an ideal environment for testing technologies and strategies necessary for long-duration space conditions allow for detailed examination of how life support systems, habitats, and protocols perform under the intense pressures of space-like isolation and missions are a globally recognised method for field-testing everything from astronaut health monitoring and emergency drills to robotics and communications in challenging Ladakh mission, part of Isro's preparations for its upcoming Gaganyaan human spaceflight as well as longer lunar ambitions, involves diverse partners, including IIT Bombay, the University of Ladakh, and private collaborators such as data collected will help researchers optimise crew health, adapt technologies for the lunar surface, and better understand how human teams operate cut off from the world for extended periods. It also demonstrates India's growing capability and scientific leadership as the nation pursues its goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon and, eventually, other planets.- Ends
