Possible admin and faculty criteria:

1. Moral policing: curfew, dress etc
2. Nature of courses and readings
3. Level of transparency with students
4. Openness and friendliness of VC and senior faculty
5. Policies on smoking, alcohol and drugs
6. LGBTQ tolerance
7. "Sanskaar"

Possible student criteria:

1. Ragging
2. Sir/Ma'am culture with juniors
3. Culture of helping others
4. Competitiveness in studies/placements/moots
5. LGBT tolerance
6. Misogyny

NUJS would definitely feature in this list. Absolutely no dress code, accessible VC round the clock (whatever be the other shortcomings of the admin), most faculty are accessible and helpful too in their own way. Students actually frame most of the guidelines and practices to an extent unprecedented in any other NLU that I'm aware of.

I graduated from NALSAR in 2009. If you believe it to be in the middle of nowhere now, it was far 'worse' back then. However, this was something that never bothered me. I liked the peaceful natural space it was, the lake, the dhabas, and Shankar. What I mean to say is, to each his own. Maybe prospective law students should consider this factor. If they want the hustle and bustle of a city, opt for NUJS and not NALSAR even if your rank permits.

Don't go for NALSAR, NLIU, NLUJ unless you like the far off place which is just you and your peers.

For the city life, go for NLSIU, NUJS or NLUD.

I don't know much about the others and their location. But maybe this is something new entrants may want to consider.

I would like to add my 2 cents here. When filling out the CLAT preference list, I filled it like everyone else: NLS, NALSAR, NUJS etc. in that order. After CLAT scores were released but we were still waiting for our ranks, I could tell from the analysis done by coaching centres that I would get either NALSAR or NUJS. This is when it struck me that I did not want to go to NALSAR at all. As a kid who had lived in a metropolitan city all his life, the prospect of living in a campus "in the middle of nowhere" for 5 years seemed ghastly and I started dreading getting NALSAR. Thankfully, my CLAT rank wasn't good enough for NALSAR and I was allotted NUJS. I just wanted to tell this so that aspirants look at other factors too while deciding on a college beyond what is followed by the herd.

Just to point out, you can be different from me and might prefer to live in a campus surrounded by nature, and for that NALSAR is an amazing college and NUJS is as detached from nature as possible.

I can tell you about NLUD.

Admin and faculty criteria -
1. Moral policing: 9 PM curfew time on paper but it's 10 PM in practice. You can go out of the campus even after 10 PM by climbing over walls or citing some fake emergency to the guards at the gates. There are no dressing rules in force at all. Wear whatever you want.
2. Nature of courses: The faculty here is left leaning especially in the initial years. Later on you will be mostly studying commercial courses so political leanings get reduced a bit. Beside courses, there are also groups such as the Queer Collective that discuss LGBTQ literature.
3. Nature of transparency: I would put it at around 70%. The admin has been transparent with the students for academic policies during the pandemic, but there have been instances of opacity too such as the VC appointment process that concluded last year.
4. Friendliness of faculty" The faculty is very friendly barring a very few bad apples. I can't say much about the new VC since he took over during the pandemic.
5. Smoking et al: Don't do it out in the open (you can do it out in the open if you are doing it in the hostel balconies), that's it. Roomchecks and raids are extremely rare and it is very easy to smuggle in whatever you want. There are also some spots on campus outside the hostels where people in indulge in such activities. Also the college is located in Delhi so people go out to party frequently.
6. LGBT tolerance: Very tolerant but I believe an LGBT student would be able to answer this question better.
7. "Sanskaar": In all my time here I have not seen a single instance of a student being told to act in a "sanskaari" manner.

Student criteria -
1. Ragging: Extremely rare. Ragging is frowned upon and often seniors will try to intervene if they hear that someone is ragging juniors.
2. Sir/ma'am: Completely absent. Calling seniors "sir/ma'am" is unheard of and even "bhaiya/didi" is frowned upon. Just call people by their name.
3. Culture of helping others: Seniors will be very helpful from the start. Your batchmates will also be very helpful but not initially.
4. Competitiveness: Extremely cut-throat, especially in academics, moots and other co-curricular activities. There have been instances of people hiding books in the library during crucial times. Slightly less competition for placements as majority of the batch is not interested in working at law firms. However, competition for placements has increased during the pandemic because of dearth of opportunities.
5. LGBT tolerance: Same as above.
6. Misogyny: Rare in my opinion but I am a guy and there can be instances of misogyny that I might miss but women wouldn't. Hence, women would be able to answer this question better.

Didn't an NLUD female student come up with an expose couple of years back about the moral policing and the harassment that she's had to face in campus because of her attire, including from the faculty? Over the years, there have also been anonymous rumours of the campus often being a very patriarchal place, quite possibly because of the prevailing North Indian culture.

This almost seems like deliberate defamation of the university to me. As a current student, I can't even imagine any faculty member commenting on anyone's clothing. Even if they did, the student body would revolt and make a huge deal out of it (as it rightly should) and I can even see other faculty members like Anup and Sophy calling out the concerned faculty publicly.

I am convinced you are a troll.

Moral policing has always been minimal at NLUD. With new admin in seat it may not altogether be visible when college opens physically. Sexual harassment has been episodical. How does the new admin deal with casteism remains yet to be seen. As the present VC had been the Registrar here a couple of years ago, so one thing is sure that he would deal with casteism in a "safe" & practical way because the practices of casteism are subtle. So he would not entangle his horns with the dominant rustic people just in order to clean the campus.

Before you start calling others troll, here are some news reports highlighting the NLUD darkness under the light.

https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/sexual-harassment-2-accused-debaters-earn-ban-for-all-nlu-delhi-men-from-st-stephens-debates-trigger-metoo-unearthing-several-on-campus-horror-stories-20181004-9573

https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/ragging-harassment-on-campus-confessions-of-a-slut-20150604-6056

I cannot comment on the second link. However, as far as the first link is concerned, only a person detached from reality would think that such problematic things as sexual harassment are restricted to NLUD and don't happen in other law schools or other colleges. The state of affairs in our country is that bad. At least the women at NLUD were brave enough to call it out.

I remember having a conversation about this with a friend from RMLNLU who said that NLUD seemed like an unsafe place for women. When I told him the actions for which men were being called out, he was horrified, not because they portrayed NLUD in a bad light, but because those same actions were so commonplace and public in RMLNLU that they were accepted as normal there. He was horrified at his own college and how normalised such behaviour had become.

"NLU Delhi: Dalit, Adivasi Students Condemn Caste-Based Discrimination on Campus"

https://livewire.thewire.in/campus/nlu-delhi-caste-dalit-adivasi-students/

My reflections based on 25 years of experience and knowledge of different NLUs.

NLSIU ragging: Pretty bad during 90s and early 2000s. It ranged from juniors being asked to do tasks for their seniors (polishing shoes, bed tea) to a few sexually charged acts. A few students were suspended in serious cases, but children of influential people got away, including a person very close to Sonia and Manmohan, when Mohan Gopal was VC (who himself was a Congress person and later became Rahul Gandhi's advisor). Among the present generation there is not much ragging. Possibly because more students are from modest families and lack the mentality of privileged brats. Also, people are more sensitive these days compared to the 90s and 2000s, plus the ragging law was yet to come into effect, plus people will not get exposed on social media.

NALSAR ragging: Similar story in 90s and early 2000s, but even worse than NLSIU because no one (as far as I know) was suspended whereas at NLSIU at least a few suspensions were handed out. Tragically, one student had to leave (I think in 2001 or 2002) because things got very bad for him. A student from Jammu & Kashmir was responsible, got away scot free because of influence. Also cases of students making racist remarks towards African students and religious minorities. A former Sikh alum wrote about how students mercilessly mocked him. https://sikhchic.com/current_events/i_am_a_sikhamerican_law_professor_not_a_terrorist
Things like that will not happen anywhere these days. You make fun of Sikhs or Muslims and your whole batch will boycott you. Another big change is that NALSAR is very queer friendly now.

NUJS ragging: Never had much a culture of ragging as Menon ran the college with an iron hand, plus many day scholars, plus not much ragging culture in Bengal compared to North India. A few some instances of it definitely happened in the early years. Again, the usual suspects: rich Delhi brats, son of a senior lawyer etc. In recent years, there were a few ugly instances but students were suspended (reported by LI). The college is also more queer friendly. More can be done to totally eradicate any type of ragging and give severe punishment to verbal raggers as well. The student body needs to be more proactive.

NLUJ: NL Mitra kept things under control, like Menon at NLSIU. Overall it's still a safe and nice college. But over the years things have deteriorated a bit. Some of the ugly sides of North Indian culture, such as casteism, misogyny and homophobia, have been seen. In 2019 one there was a rather shameful incident. Once again, it is a section of rich kids with political connections who misbehave.

Overall, the picture is that all the above NLUs are good colleges and great places to study. But the culture of powerful children acting like goondas still happens sometimes.

Study myself in NUJS. Best friend from school studies in NLUJ. Friends in NUJS have friends in the other two as well. So I think I have experienced and heard a fair bit about all four. I agree with a few points that ragging might have been worse before and campuses are increasingly becoming queer friendly, but the OP has posted a far more rosy picture of the present state of these colleges which still isn't true. I joined in 2017 and was made to hump walls, desks, act like a sex worker and dance to lewd songs almost every other night, and was once even threatened with a beating, all for laughing at a really funny joke cracked by one of the seniors who was ragging me. My friend in NLUJ was once beaten using a stick for answering a question incorrectly.

Who do you think you even are to be discrediting someone's life experiences without even knowing them? Next time keep your shitty remarks to yourself.

30 minutes or less if you are confident enough to take appropriate actions. Let's get one thing straight. No senior deserves to have any right over the junior other than basic respect. The latter shouldn't even be made to fetch a book for the former unless they want to. People who say that you really need seniors to feel pally towards you to go through law school are just blowing smoke and preserving the status quo. There are plenty of seniors who would behave like a human to you and still help you. Gravitate towards them. If someone else asks you to do something that you are not comfortable with, refuse politely. If faced with any threat, immediately go to the concerned authorities, and watch those bullies cower and back down. Don't take s*it from anyone. That's not the same as disrespecting anyone. I have gone through law school in just the manner that I described. Never had any problem myself.

Completely agree. People who rag, no matter how 'harmless' are bullies by nature to different extent, and the product of bad upbringing. I don't care how many times this comment gets downvoted. There is something wrong with their school education and the principles that they have been taught by their families. You don't need to rag to get to know your juniors well.

Don't believe any of that. The 'positive interaction' at NUJS has been clamped down to the extent of seniors ruing that they don't even get to know the juniors in their first year. And the authorities have punished every instance that has been brought to their attention. I have also got at least 5 friends studying at NUJS, in their 3rd and 4th years. They have never been made to do any of that, nor even mentioned those happening. At the most, they were asked to fetch dutta for seniors from Biju's.

Law School is the most 'liberal' - no dress code, in fact a professor got censured for attempting a dress code. Absolute free reign over the entire campus (during Venkata Rao). Sudhir doesn't clamp down on personal freedoms, but he doesn't let people utilise the full campus freely except without admin oversight/approval.

RVR was the chillest person. Ever.

Couples would hold hands and walk past him in the acad at 10pm and he would turn a blind eye.

An LLM student popularly known as 'Sex Bomb' (not making this up) used to make out with his girlfriend on the pathway between Cheta and the library and RVR would literally walk away from there.

The same couple would also sit in the quad and cuddle in the 11am break!

If you have examples of him clamping down, please provide. He's not that sort of guy. He literally laughs hysterically when telling stories of how he and his flatmates sometimes had to physically carry up drunken Australians in their Oxford accommodation, whose capacity to drink beer he is still amazed at. Prudish/fastidious types would not laugh at that. They would frown, look contemptuous and try to avoid telling such stories if they could at all manage it.

Stop defaming NLUD. It's really sad that NLUD attracts so much hate after the NIRF success. In India we are unable to appreciate success and always feel jealous and insecure instead of congratulating people adn accepting that we have to improve. . This culture is holding India back.

Ghanta liberal! NALSAR is the closest to liberal of the three named. NLSIU is elitist to the core, and practices a lot of disturbing things that are kept quiet about. The less said about NLUD, the better. Reports have already been shared by others to reveal the true culture there.
NUJS is fairly liberal, but that's mostly because students are given a free hand. If the majority students start displaying conservatism one day, the place would turn that way too.

It is not brutal in the ones I know: NALSAR, NLSIU or NLUD. Extreme events have happened in the past in all these places but that is hardly the norm. You could qualify it as general interaction but it is very subjective. For instance, if you're shy and introverted, positively tongue-tied, being asked to dance on the spot is uncomfortable - at the same time many I know actually cherished this for some twisted reason. Nothing of the sort shown in movies or talked about in conspiratorial whispers: there are no electrified spoons or butt-branding incidents. Most serious people don't give a shit about doing it "for the culture", and in fact actively intervene in most cases they can. That's my personal experience, of course.

That's alright, Kian. Given the people who have been tagged thus in past, we are ready to proudly wear that badge. Yes, we would rather have a liberal atmosphere within the university and outside. No, we don't really care if others do not like it. We believe that true education and knowledge make one appreciate liberal values. If that discourages 'non-liberal' people to come here or interact with us, we have got absolutely no problem with that either.

You actually don't know what your country means. You equate country with the political party in power and the people heading those. In fact, you do so despite the SC saying otherwise, so you can't even be a very good lawyer/law student. As for disagreeing with people, no, we can't have conversations with people supporting hate, genocide, religious oppression, the state not taking care of the people, and doing almost everything wrongly. That's not called being intolerant, it's called humanity. As I said, if you have got a problem with that, then don't come here. There are plenty of places where you would be welcomed with open arms.

If there are students who believe that such people shouldn't be called, then they are free to do what others did re the governor. Nobody is stopping them. I fail to see how exactly you have got any locus, not even being from the university. As I said, if our actions are causing you to bristle and take offence and call us names, please do so, and stay away from us. In fact, you can even try to boycott us from your events (not that anyone sane wants to go to UP anyway).