NIT Goa, VJTI Mumbai, and COEP Mumbai are well-known engineering colleges. The choice depends upon you. The following are the points to be considered.

• If you are Mumbai-based, VJTI is the best choice. The college has played a crucial role in setting up IITs and RECs in India. It has a decent infrastructure.
• If you are Pune-based, COEP is the best choice. It has the best infrastructure with a big campus and excellent placements.
• If you want to have an NIT tag under your belt NIT Goa is the best choice.

All these colleges are at a similar level. So, you should choose according to your convenience. If you don’t live at any of these locations then your preference order should be COEP/ VJTI > NIT Goa. VJIT has a great placement record. The average CTC offered by the institute is 7 LPA. 

Between KJ Somaiya and VJTI, the latter is definitely better. Whether or not you should take a year drop that depends on you and how important is this year to you. 

Comparison:

If you compare KJ Somaiya and VJTI, in terms of placement and higher education you will see that the best students from KJ Somaiya do get similar opportunities as VJTI students. One of my friends attended VJTI and got placed in a company that was one of the best to visit KJ Somaiya too. So, he has 4-6 colleagues from KJ Somaiya. 

As long as brand value goes, after 5 years of the compilation of your course, no one will care where are you from VJTI or KJ Somaiya. 

People will care if you are from IIT though because IIT brand-name sticks. 

A word of advice, dropping a year to join VJTI may not be worth it. If you are going to drop a year, try to get into an IIT or IIIT.

Having to know some people from both these institutions, I can say that both of these colleges are specialized in two different fields. Let me share some facts about both these colleges I gathered by interacting with them.

• VJTI is one of the prominent engineering colleges and NITIE is prominent among the top B-schools of India. 
• NITIE is recognized for its extensive alumni and professional professors who are experts in their fields. 
• Project Management at NITIE, in terms of studies, is the best among the B-schools in the country.
• From Project Management at VJTI, 18% of the students are placed in prominent companies.
• NITIE is known for its high management extension.
• The placement and faculty of VJTI are not up to the mark when compared to NITIE.

Hence, there is no comparison between VJTI and NITIE. But one of my friends has recommended NITIE as in many aspects it manages to be better than VJTI. 

For VJTI’s CS department, you are required to be in the top 150 students in CET. Alongside those, the IT cutoff as seen in a specific year was around the ranking of 325. These as mentioned are for a general female or male candidate.

The candidates who are to appear must however have scored more than 50% in 10 + 2 examinations from a recognized board of education. The Selection Criteria will be Entrance Based (MHT - CET).

As far as the closing rank of KJ Somaiya is concerned, then for CS, it was considered to be around 3500 and for IT, the closing rank was known to be somewhere ranging between and around 6500. Besides, the rank mentioned latter is for non-minority candidates.

But, if you are anyhow a Gujrati minority, then being selected in the institute is not much of a hassle. For the department of CS, the cutoff was ranged to be around the ranking of 7000, and similarly, for IT, it was around the ranking of 14000.

From sometime in a particular year, KJ Somaiya is expected to initiate its own University. And it can drastically alter the above mentioned numbers and disproportionate it in any specific manner. Besides, it also is supposed to conduct its own entrance exam in sometime or might also have initiated, the notice of which will be denoted in the college section area.

I have quite a few friends at VJIT Mumbai, so I can speak for the institute. After IITs, it is quite reputed among students. People from outside of Maharashtra may not be aware of VJIT but inside the state being a student of VJIT is a matter of pride. 

If we make a comparison of engineering colleges nationwide, it will be IITs from tier-1, followed by few NITs, and after that colleges such as VJIT for the following tier. 

VJIT is an old institute with a huge brand value. Many reputed MNCs visit the campus for the placement drive. It is less recognized but ‘underrated’ is probably is the wrong word to describe it. 

The following factors are the reasons who most people are not familiar with the institute. 

• It is a state college, that limits its appeal to a great extent. Students, parents, and media all alike give far more important to national colleges/institutions by default.
• As students outside of the state of the institute do not know about the college, they do not apply and thus the diversity is heavily skewed.

So, VJIT may not have national recognition but it is quite reputed inside Maharashtra.

I have a few friends at VJTI and they are not happy with the Electrical Engineering program offered by the institute. Here are some of the things that they mentioned about the institute.

• In VJTI, there has been a lack of good faculties for ages. Most of the professors in VJTI lack sufficient experience to deliver proper lectures and provide proper practical exposure to students.
• Due to the lack of faculties in VJTI, there are walk-in interviews conducted by the institute to hire faculties. But, even in those interviews, there is no proper candidate with good enough experience. Some of the faculties are even from tier-3 colleges.
• There is no proper laboratory equipment available in VJTI, especially in the electrical engineering department. Almost 90% of the lab works are done through software simulations.
• The class timings in VJTI are not satisfactory for most students in the institute. On a usual day, classes start from 9 AM and continue till 5 PM, which most students think to be too long and hectic.

Considering the above disadvantages of VJTI, ECE at IIIT Nagpur is a much better choice for students. Here is a brief overview of the ECE course at IIIT Nagpur.

Hope this helps.