IIT Mandi Placements: When Hard Work Takes a Backseat to Chaos, Cheating and Favouritism
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I’m a 3rd-year student at IIT Mandi, and like many others, I’ve been grinding day and night — DSA, academics, projects — trying to make the most of the limited opportunities that come our way.
But whenever a good company arrives, the process seems to descend into chaos, opacity and favouritism.
Companies cancelling at the last moment.
MNCs like Google using seemingly arbitrary shortlisting through unproctored OAs.
And perhaps most frustratingly, rampant cheating in assessments. I’ve personally seen people who struggle to clear semester examinations suddenly solving DSA questions with remarkable ease during recruitment tests.
At this scale, it becomes difficult to believe that such malpractice is happening entirely without the knowledge or involvement of people responsible for conducting these assessments. There are serious concerns among students about whether some C&P members themselves are facilitating or turning a blind eye to such cheating.
What makes the situation even more frustrating is that C&P has students from our own batch involved. We often know when a company has actually cancelled or withdrawn, yet the official communication sometimes tells us that the company has merely “postponed” the process.
Why the lack of transparency?
Rejection isn't the problem. If someone is genuinely better prepared and gets selected, fair enough.
The problem is watching months of preparation become meaningless because of poorly administered assessments, possible malpractice, arbitrary shortlisting and institutional opacity.
And when students raise these concerns, instead of accountability, we often feel dismissed and gaslit.
We aren't asking to be handed jobs.
We're asking for a fair process where hard work, competence and integrity actually matter.