Hello aspirant!!

Neither.

It all boils down to personal preference.

Academic Structure

Manipal: Rigorous curriculum, has 2 open electives and six program electives. Limited flexibility as of now (2016). Each major allows a minor specialisation based on the program electives chosen. MIT Manipal is introducing minors soon, although I can’t confirm when.

VIT: Rigorous curriculum, and has a Fully Flexible Credit System. I’ve heard that the FFCS can be a boon or a bane, but for the purpose of this discussion, I’ll assume it’s a pro. VIT also offers minors in the engineering disciplines, and their own version of a “double major”, where they allow you to major in one engineering and one management field.

Note: Both of these universities have academically rigorous curricula. The difference is in terms of flexibility.

Faculty

Can’t comment on this, only someone who has attended both can compare them. From what I’ve heard, both of them have professors ranging from great to mediocre.

International Recognition

I’d hate to break it to all the naive people out there, but both of these institutes are pretty unheard of outside of India. The only Indian institutes with any international recognition are the IITs. Period.

Student Population

Manipal: Annual intake of about 1800 students. Lower population, less crowded, better faculty to student ratio.

VIT: Annual intake of about 3600 students. If Quora posts are anything to go by, I’ve heard that VIT is getting a bit overcrowded.

Campus Life

Manipal: More liberal atmosphere, less restrictive rules. There are a couple of beaches nearby.

VIT: More restrictive place, with a few strict rules (need confirmation here, but I’m only writing it based on what other VITians have said on Quora). Especially tough towards girls.

Proximity to cities

Manipal: Closest city is Mangalore, which is about an hour and a half away. Bangalore is about 9 hours away.

VIT: The closest cities are Chennai and Bangalore, so they are more easily accessible.

Hostels

Manipal: I’ve heard they’re better than a lot of colleges in India. Rooms are pretty great, with plenty of options available. Hostel fees are higher.

VIT: Heard they were overcrowded in some cases, generally described as “okay”. Lower hostel fees.

Course Fees

Manipal: Generally has higher fees.

VIT: Has lower fees than Manipal for Category 1 and 2 students. For Categories 3, 4, and 5, the fees are much higher than Manipal’s.

Placements

Both of the universities fare well here, so I won’t go into detail about this. The statistics can be found online.

Opportunities to go abroad

Manipal: IAESTE and AIESEC provide plenty of opportunities to go abroad. Additionally, there is a new semester abroad program between Manipal and its partner universities in several countries. Costs vary, but usually you pay tuition at your home institution (Manipal), which is pretty much included in your course fee, and you have to take care of the living costs yourself. IAESTE provides technical paid internships. Research work can be carried out in any other universities during the 8th semester.

VIT: Has a Semester Abroad Program (SAP), where you pay tuition at the university you choose to attend, and you have to take care of the living costs. VIT is also one of the universities in India eligible for the DAAD scholarships, which helps those who wish to conduct research work at a German university.

Undergraduate research experience

Both provide opportunities to conduct projects with professors. I’ll add more to this section if I can find any new information.

Pursuing higher studies after graduating

Again, both do well in this section as well. Graduates from both universities have gone on to great grad schools, and are doing pretty well. Check the alumni on LinkedIn and see where they are. You’ll notice that all of them are in good places.

Neither of the two have any advantage over the other here.

College Fests

Each of them have two fests.

Manipal: TechTatva and Revels.

VIT: Riviera and graVITas.

Extracurricular Activities and Student Clubs

Both have a huge number of clubs dedicated to various activities.

Technical teams and competitions (mainly SAE)

Manipal: Has more well recognised teams, who are doing pretty well internationally and have won quite a few awards and international recognition, and have been consistently ranked amongst Asia’s best teams.

VIT: Has a larger number of teams, but they have not achieved the same level of recognition. They do relatively well internationally.

Hope this was helpful.

All the best.