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NUJS boycotts Outlook law school rankings, NLU-J butts back in

Good ol' rankings game continues to rankle
Good ol' rankings game continues to rankle
National magazine Outlook India has ranked four national law schools as India’s best law colleges followed by two private Pune schools but following a spat with the magazine last year, NUJS Kolkata declined to provide data and was not included in the list while NLU Jodhpur re-entered this year in fourth place.

Outlook, which commissioned research agency MDRA to carry out the research, ranked NLSIU Bangalore, Nalsar Hyderabad, NLIU Bhopal and NLU Jodhpur in the top four, followed by ILS Pune and Symbiosis Pune.

“Selection process” was again weighted the most heavily with 287 points, followed by infrastructure with 213 points. NLSIU achieved a lower score than Nalsar in the “selection process category”. Both colleges participate in the Common Law Admissions Test (CLAT), where NLSIU has been the first preference for two years running.

In infrastructure NLSIU scored the highest with 204, ahead of Nalsar on 199. NLIU Bhopal also outscored Nalsar with 203 points.

In placements Outlook ranked NLSIU with 153 points just before Nalsar, while NLIU Bhopal and NLU Jodhpur had almost the same score at around 137. In the online version of the magazine no detailed methodology was published about the law school rankings, although for engineering more information was given on its website.

Department of Law BHU Varanasi, GLC Mumbai, Amity Law School Delhi and GNLU Gandhinagar occupied places seven to 10.

In August 2010 NUJS professor Shamnad Basheer and two students wrote official letters of complaint to Outlook India and India Today questioning their methodologies and requesting clarification, such as Outlook’s choice to attribute greater weight to the selection process than to faculty, for example.

Outlook replied on 1 September 2010 with further information on its rating system, which the NUJS complainants described as “lackadaisical” in turn in their response.

Basheer told Legally India yesterday that NUJS therefore chose not to supply any figures to Outlook. Outlook stated in its table that “only institutes that submitted objective data on time have been ranked”.

NLU Jodhpur, which was in the top 10 in last year’s Outlook rankings but made seventh in 2009, made an entry this year at number four.

Rival rankings

In December 2010 Lawyers Update magazine compiled its own ranking, also using data from Legally India’s Mooting Premier League to rank colleges.

Outlook India 2011 law school rankings

Rank College Overall score Selection process (287) Personality dev'p & ind interface (144) Infrastructure (213) Placement (156)
1 NLSIU Bangalore 906.5 231.8 140.6 204.1 152.8
2 Nalsar Hyderabad 899.1 233.7 140.6 199.4 150.1
3 NLIU Bhopal 871.5 226.5 127.2 202.8 137.3
4 NLU Jodhpur 805.7 200.6 119.6 188 137.2
5 ILS Pune 796.4 234.1 117 176.2 121.5
6 Symbiosis Pune 778.8 214.8 121 159.5 132.2
7 BHU Law, Varanasi 765.8 238.4 110.8 174.4 101
8 GLC Mumbai 763.6 244.8 108.5 138.8 129.3
9 Amity Delhi 758.5 194.5 109.8 184.5 125.8
10 GNLU Gandhinagar 741.1 197.4 111.8 161.3 118.8

Source: Outlook India June 2011

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