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. 

According to my knowledge, College of Engineering, Pune is not that popular. When you do a basic google search, most suggestions say it is a good college. Many people have also compared it with VNIT Nagpur while a few also say that it is probably better than VNIT.

• When these two colleges are compared to NIT Surathkal, it makes NIT Surathkal the best. This institute ranks as one of the top 3 NITs in our country – NIT Trichy, NIT Warangal and NIT Surathkal. 
• If placements are your concern, they are pretty good. Additionally, the average packages are also increasing every year.
• Even if your grades are low, you will still land a job in some company. However, It is advised to study hard if you want a plethora of opportunities to be open for you. 
• There are quite a few top notch companies that pay higher salaries every year. 
• Most packages are 10+ and increasing even now.

Here are some basic facts about both the colleges - 

As of 2021, the highest international package offered was INR 83 LPA with one student receiving a domestic package of INR 49 LPA, with more than 286 different companies visiting the institute. The top recruiters here include Oracle, Uber, Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Google.

A major plus point is also the beach is quite close to the college. If you are looking for a drawback, it is probably the food. You will find a north Indian and south Indian mess but the food is nothing to boast about.

Overall, you will definitely have a good time at NIT Surathkal. You will have to research a little more about Pune.

VJTI Mumbai's E&TC program saw a 97% placement rate in 2019 and COEP's Department of Instrumentation and Control has a placement rate of 85% - 90% in general. Students at COEP get opportunities of working with PSUs like HPCL or BPCL. The highest package has gone up to INR 37 LPA.

The table below highlights the two programs as well:

Admission: Students will be considered for VJTI Admissions and COEP Admissions if they have 50-55% marks in 10+2 and graduation; and MAH-CET/GATE score, as per requirement.

Faculty

VJTI:

• There are 20 faculty members for the E & TC program including 5 members for the Diploma level and 7 for the Degree level.

COEP:

• There are 11 faculty members in the Instrumentation and Control Department; most of them have a Ph.D. from well-known national and international universities like the University of St Louis; University of Washington Seattle, IITR, etc.

Infrastructure

VJTI Mumbai:

• Under the TEQIP program, it has procured equipment for Communication, Virtual Instrumentation
• The High Voltage lab is funded by Siemens Germany and AICTE. The latest addition to its labs is the VJTI- L&T Low Voltage Switchgear Laboratory.

COEP Pune:

• There are department labs in the COEP Instrumentation department like the Johnson Control Lab, Advanced lab, etc.

Placements

VJTI:

• Most students from the E&TC department get jobs in consultancy firms, the finance sector,s and in IT companies.
• There are only a few core placements with Reliance, Airtel, etc. The major recruiters over the years have been Airtel, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc.
• The highest package offered in 2018 was INR 24 LPA and the average salary was 6.5 LPA.

COEP Pune:

• In 2018, the maximum package offered at COEP for instrumentation and control was INR 18 LPA and the major recruiters were Barclays and HP.

Also, 85% of seats are reserved for Maharashtra candidates at VJTI. Students must keep the above-mentioned features in mind when choosing.