Hii Adarsh
The below is a review by a student.

I was in a similar situation 2 years ago, and I’m very happy with the decision I took. This answer is completely based on my perception of the 2 institutes and I understand some people may have different opinions.

Let’s compare the 2 (MIT Manipal and VIT Vellore) with a few factors:

1. Branch strength: Of the 3 branches you have mentioned, MIT admits no more than 240 students in each branch every year, whereas VIT admits somewhere above 1000 students in each branch every year. The number of students indicates the quality of attention given to each pupil in the institute.
2. Placements: I cannot speak a lot about the placement at VIT, but Mass Recruiting Companies (MNCs) like Infosys, Cognizant, TCS take about 1–2K+ students from VIT in a batch of 7K students. This number is likely to change now given the drop in IT jobs this year. At MIT they pick about 200–300 students in total. The number of core jobs given is relatively more at MIT and the quality of jobs are pretty good as well.
3. Grading: Both the colleges provide relative grading; however the system is very different in the 2. At MIT, about 2K+ students are admitted in each batch across 16 disciplines. In the 1st year, students are divided into the ‘Physics’ or ‘Chemistry’ cycle consisting of 1K students each. In the first year you compete with about 1K students for your CGPA, and in the subsequent years, you compete with the 240 students in your batch. At VIT, you only compete with the 60 odd students in your class. So the complete meaning of CGPA is lost at VIT as you’ll have way too many 9 pointers in your college (a better comparison is, one topper for each class in VIT vs one topper for each branch at MIT).
4. Living facilities and restrictions: For an 18-year-old, who is given the responsibility to vote for the Prime Minister of the country, I don’t understand the point of hostel curfew at both the colleges, but MIT is much more understanding in this factor. In the first year, students have a perm time of 9:30 PM (which is extended to 11 PM almost 70% of the time because of exams, college fests etc) and seniors have a perm time of 11 PM. I’m not sure of the exact time at VIT, but I think all students are expected to return back to their hostels by 9 PM in every year (girls aren’t allowed to go outside the campus for the first 3 months after they join the college). If you don’t wish to reside in the MIT hostels, you just need to submit a form approved by your parents to stay outside and that’s it. At VIT, you aren’t allowed to move out unless you reside with your parents (not even your uncle/aunt). I’m sure you can find many more articles on the internet about the restrictions imposed at VIT.
5. Places to visit around: While I’m not completely aware of the places in Vellore, Manipal has about 6–7 beaches just 30 minutes away from the campus, there are quite a few scenic places within Manipal itself, Goa is just 5 hours away and Gokarna is 3 hours away. There are lots to do in Manipal. Vellore is more like a city on the highway.

Now about Manipal itself: The college has 78 clubs and many student projects catering to almost every technical and non-technical interest. You get to interact with people from 28 other colleges (medicine, dentistry, journalism etc) and not just engineers. This helps you to get a broader perspective on many issues. The faculty is decent here and there’s a lot of aid given for technical and entrepreneurial ventures. The top administration is very helpful and makes sure the student is given every opportunity for a holistic development. Also, the quality of peers at MIT is really good and the environment is such that everyone is pushed to do something better at every instant.

If you have any specific questions regarding MIT Manipal, feel free to PM me.

As far as VIT Chennai and VIT Vellore are concerned, VIT Chennai is very new compared to VIT Vellore and hasn’t improved much in terms of quality of teachers and students, facilities given, placements