Story highlights India produces nearly 1.6 million engineers from its more than 2,900 colleges every year

Many want to work in the US but that's getting harder under Trump

Pankti Mehta is a Mumbai based independent journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Mumbai, India (CNN) They're harder to get into than Harvard, Yale or Oxford.

India's 23 elite engineering schools attract more than a million applications each year and less than 1% of applicants are successful.

Traditionally seen as a ticket to a plum job in the US, the appeal of Institutes of Technology (IIT) hasn't been diminished by US President Donald Trump's "hire American" policy -- at least yet.

"It may impact engineering jobs for Indians in the US, but I know that global demand for IIT graduates will be sustained -- in other countries too," says Naman Narang, an 17-year-old student from Mumbai, who took the national test for admission In April.

He's hopeful that, by the time he graduates in five years, "there might be another American president with revised policies."

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