Effectiveness of plants selected in early segregating F₂ and F₃ populations was estimated in their corresponding F₃ and F₄ generation of two rice crosses, Jhona 349 X IET-12944 and Narendra 80 X Lalmati. Both the F₂ and F₃ selected plants showed consistency in increment of response to selection and realized heritability in their corresponding F₃ and F₄ generation for grain yield/plant and 100-grain weight, whereas these estimates were inconsistent for spikelets/main panicle and in undesirable direction for panicle/plant. Among intergeneration correlations, the F₂ selected plants showed inconsistent significant correlation with their F₃ progenies over crosses for all the characters, while F₃ selected plants had significant correlations with their F₄ progenies for 100-grain weight and grain yield/plant in both the crosses. The higher estimates of selection parameters like response to selection and realized heritability as well as significant correlation for grain yield/plant and 100- grain weight in F₄ generation suggested that selection for these two polygenic traits should preferably be started from F₃ generation.