There are no specific criteria as such to decide whether a college has surpassed another or not. The rankings offered by different councils, don’t matter much and are somewhat considered irrelevant too. In general, people have an overall perception in mind, in which IITs are the best, followed by NITs and some well-known IIITs, and some IISc and BITS. 

Comparison: (Winning Institution - IIIT Allahabad)

• Talking about IIIT Allahabad, it is quite well established and offers decent facilities and infrastructure. 
• IIIT Lucknow is far from the standards of IIIT Lucknow, and it is difficult for the institute to reach the same level as IIIT Allahabad, even after 10-15 years.
• There is a level of saturation in the minds of students and educational advisors, where there are some limits of comparison. For example, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, and IIT Delhi can’t be compared to NIT Trichy or NIT Warangal. 
• Although NIRF rankings provide a way to categorize institutes according to their quality, there is a standard slab that decides colleges of the same level. 

For the comparison of IIIT Allahabad and IIIT Lucknow, the former has made huge progress with time, and it is almost impossible for IIIT Lucknow to reach that level in the next 10-15 years. There is not much difference in location for the institutes too, so exposure will not be an advantage. In the best-case scenario, the gap in development between IIIT Allahabad and IIIT Lucknow may get reduced.

Yes, indeed it is. Though it is an elective subject. You will not be taught the basics of Machine Learning. It has been observed that faculty distributes notes of some other universities to the students. 

Almost 60% of the students from the IT branch work on several machine learning projects while they study at IIIT Allahabad. There is a fixed pattern that can be seen in all these projects:

• The downloading dataset from Kaggle/UCI or any other source
• Installing sci-kit-learn/Tensorflow in the student’s python environment
• Running all types of algorithms on GPUs available on campus
• Plot and plan all these algorithms for their accuracy and you are done!

Machine Learning is very much part of the curriculum and it’s an amazing exposure and experience for all those who are passionate about the studies of Machine Learning.

There is a special course called ‘soft computing’ which potentially covers all the basic concepts such as classical Machine Learning models, and architectures like SVM, KNN, and Logistic Regression.

These 4 years would be the most memorable years of your life. It often sounds clichéd when you see so many people saying how they had enjoyed their college years and wished they could relive them again, but it’s the memories that one makes during this time that bring a smile to your face when reminiscing them.

• Getting out of your comfort zone is most important. You can start with it by becoming a member of society, help in organizing events during cultural fests, represent IIIT-Allahabad at sports fests, etc. 
• Students often end up being close friends with people from the same societies and have a memorable time indulging in all the extra-curricular activities.
• Exploring and finding something that interests you. While as a fresher, you will definitely come across seniors who tell you about the coding culture in the college. 
• A lot of people start out with competitive coding right from the first year and then slowly move to other fields. You should try competitive coding, web development, open-source, cybersecurity, etc. You can even ask your seniors about their experience. 
• Your CGPA matters and the companies look for the knowledge that you have gained. Almost all companies that visit the campus for recruitments allow students with a CGPA greater than 7.5 to sit for the tests. 
• But for an MBA/ MS after graduation, research internship during summer break, or the course of your final semester, having a good CGPA really helps you a lot.

Understand who to approach for guidance and help. If you wanted to know anything related to internships, placements, the best people you can approach are the third- and fourth-year students. They are the ones who have prepared and are currently experiencing intern and placement sessions first hand and are in a good position to help you out.

Keep an open mind. You will come across many people with different lookouts on various things. The best thing would be to listen to what people have to say and then decide what your next action should be. This way, you would make better listeners and more informed decisions.

Both the IIIT Allahabad as well as MNNIT Allahabad are excellent institutes in their own way and there may not be a clear winner among the two. Here’s a comparison of the two institutes based on a few important parameters which can be of help. 

Legacy:

• MNNIT Allahabad: The computer science department is one of the biggest in the country. Here IT is considered equivalent to CSE. Also, it is a 60-year-old institute so has a better legacy than the former MLNREC.
• IIIT Allahabad: It has a legacy of just over 22 years. But still, it is a widely respected institution in its own way.

Infrastructure:

• MNNIT Allahabad: Infrastructure is inversely proportional to legacy and thus it has average facilities such as libraries, crammed hostel rooms, canteen, non-functional swimming pools, etc.
• IIIT Allahabad: It boasts of state-of-the-art modern infrastructure being a newer institute.

Placements:

• MNNIT Allahabad: For the year 2019, 95.56% of the total 90 eligible students in the IT branch were placed with an average and highest salary of INR 12.97 LPA and INR 36 LPA respectively.
• IIIT Allahabad: They do not provide branch-specific statistics, but according to overall statistics, more than 96% of eligible students got placed with an average and highest CTC of INR 20.83 LPA and INR 43 LPA respectively for the year 2019-20.

Coding Culture:

• MNNIT Allahabad: It is good in this institute and one of the important criteria for any programmer to choose an institute. They have churned out pretty good coders in the past.
• IIIT Allahabad: They are doing great in this aspect recently. This is due to the timely updates their syllabus gets which is in sync with industry demands. Also, coding is introduced right from the first year, unlike other engineering colleges.

Mess:

• MNNIT Allahabad: They serve only vegetarian food which is really difficult for non-vegetarians.
• IIIT Allahabad: They serve both types of foods. So, no need to worry.

At MNNIT Allahabad the seniors are quite helpful. They conduct coding classes or doubt clearing classes for juniors during the weekend.

In the end, both the colleges will give you many things, some good and some not so good. But the most important thing is how you utilize them properly. 

If you are getting CS at IIIT which is a 4-year course then it is the ultimate choice. IIIT Allahabad is a renowned college. However, if you are comparing other branches or courses, a quick comparison is needed for that.

• If you want to pursue any other course other than CS then choose Thapar University.
• If you want to explore before settling for the Tech profession then you can opt for Thapar University.
• If you want to work in the tech industry and are 100% sure that you do not want to go for MBA then opt for IIIT Allahabad.
• If you want to do research then IIIT Allahabad is the potential choice.
• If you want to examine other branches as well and do not want to only be restricted to IT then Thapar University is the best place.
• If you are from Punjab then opt for Thapar University as it has enormous value in Punjab. You will feel like celebs there and four years will be worth living.

The table shows a brief overview of the institution:

IIIT A is not an IIT nor a parody of IIT it is a government college and is better than many NIT's even many new IIT's choose according to their preferences and go for it.