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AFAIK, HNLU has a slightly better alumni base and it still ranks above RML in traditional rankings; I do know a few people who left RML for HNLU in spot vacancies. As to how advantageous a shift that is, I cannot say.
HNLU does have steadily improving placements, with several PPOs and campus placements at T1 and T2 firms along with in-house roles and prestigious LLM offers. Overall, for HNLU I'd say while it's not a T1 school yet, if you are diligent and persevering, you have very good opportunities available. I don't know how the placement figures compare to RML, but the same is likely to be true for it as well and I do know people from there who went on to do very well.
I think I speak for both places when I say that the general atmosphere is quite relaxed and it is up to the student to keep up with academics.
Being in Raipur does not pose any locational disadvantage.
As to whether things are improving under VCV, well, things are definitely getting better in all measurable metrics: faculty recruitments, alumni relations, industry relations, outreach programmes, new initiatives (credit courses with external faculty from India and abroad, mental health support/free counselling via YourDost etc). There are general internal issues but let's not get into that, that's quite irrelevant.
The one advantage I see at RML, which sometimes makes me wonder if I should've gone there instead, is that you can choose your Arts major. At HNLU, everyone has to major in Political Science. At RML, you get to choose out of Psychology, Sociology and Economics. This may not be of any significance to students committed to becoming lawyers, but it was a big deal to me.
But when doing this thought experiment, of whether I'd have been better off at RML, I also consider that at RML, the students can be a little more.... boisterous. Take this with a pinch of salt because this is based purely on anecdotes I've heard, but yeah we heard that ragging etc is/was a little more intense at RML. Again, this was anecdotal, may not be representative of the student body as a whole. And it's not like HNLU is much more pious. So yeah.
Whether you ultimately end up in RML or HNLU, I will say this: while the gap is shrinking, some very material differences do remain between T1 and T2 NLUs. So make sure you work hard and, very importantly, stay abreast of opportunities available. Things you can do, things you can work towards. There are several things kids at NALSAR and NLS had been doing since ages that we never found out about/never thought we could do. Remote research assistantships under eminent scholars from abroad, prestigious competitions (Jean Pictet etc), interning at firms in UK, Singapore, Korea etc and ultimately getting training contracts.
1. Things have been shaky ngl. (There have been 2 incidents of protests against admin this year itself)
2. HNLU seems a notch above in corporate placements, everything else is more or less the same.
3. The students claim that it's improving but only time will tell.
4. Yeah, placements are growing each year but you should be mindful of the batch size of 180 students while accessing the number of students placed.
5. I Can't answer this one with credible sources but I've heard that the overall crowd is mixed (most of them being diligent).
6. Yes, if you're from a metro city then obviously you would feel a bit disconnected but the university manages to provide all the essentials from a physician, stationary and mental counseling to transportation to the city.
7. I don't think so. T-1 NLU does not have a definitive meaning, but let's assume that it's an NLU that manages to place 90% of its batch comfortably. For that to happen, HNLU has to focus on: a) The student intake quality (which is in decline for the past few years due to domicile cut-off decreasing year by year.)
b) The faculty (GNLU also has a similar scenario, but despite that, it manages to place most of its students, which suggests that even with a weaker pool of students as compared to other T-1 NLUs it performs similarly or even better in some cases)
And lastly, I'll also be joining HNLU so we might as well catch up sometime!