Two Paths, Two Pressures – IIT vs. UC Berkeley

In Part 1 of this series, I spoke about the coaching culture in India and its growing dominance over genuine schooling. In this part, I want to widen the lens and compare two prestigious systems that parents and students often hold up as the gold standard: the Indian IITs and institutions like UC Berkeley in the United States.

On paper, both seem to demand excellence. But the kind of excellence they ask for — and the kind of student they produce — could not be more different.

The IIT-JEE preparation system in India is highly centralized around one metric: an exam score. That one exam, taken on one day, carries the power to decide whether a student is deemed a 'success' or not. This is why we see children, barely 14 or 15, being pulled into long hours of coaching — often at the cost of school attendance, creative thinking, hobbies, or emotional growth.

Now contrast that with the UC Berkeley admission process. Yes, it is competitive. But it is also holistic. A student is evaluated on multiple parameters: academic records, personal essays, letters of recommendation, projects, and most importantly, a sense of direction and self-awareness. There is no single test that defines them.

One system values precision under pressure. The other, reflection and personal growth.

Neither is perfect. But here’s what we must ask ourselves: Are we training children to become better test-takers — or better thinkers?

We cannot ignore that a large portion of India’s coaching ecosystem is now a commercial enterprise. In some cases, schools exist on paper just to fulfill regulatory compliance. The real schooling has moved underground, into private centers that feed off anxiety and create unhealthy hierarchies of worth.

This is not just academically unsound — it’s emotionally harmful. It isolates students from the joy of learning, from meaningful friendships, and from the kind of unstructured exploration that builds lifelong resilience.

At NSBT, we try to ask a different question: What does it mean to educate a student for life, not just for an exam?

In Part 3, we’ll explore what families, educators, and institutions can do differently — and why it’s time to redesign the system from the ground up.