"Itβs the only college capable of sustaining itself separated from CLAT"
I guess you are too young to remember that 12-13 years ago (before CLAT) all NLUs (which were operational then) had their own entrance exam and all of them were thriving. Then a concerted effort by students and a couple of NGOs led to the creation of CLAT after a court order.
NLUD was being created around this time and Ranveer Singh was the first VC. He calculated that it would be helpful to have a different exam as NLUD was unknown at the time and it would have ranked no. 8 or 9 in the preference list of the students if it was to be part of CLAT (as we have seen the initial ranks get ossified and rarely changes massively). Also, AILET gave a nice boost to income for the uni, he also publicly declared at the time that all NLUs had profited from their own entrance exam in the formative years to build a corpus and that chance should not be taken away from NLUD.
Shamnad Basheer decided that NLUD should be make party to the order and he was pursuing it around 2012, but other events took place and this was never pursued, and AILET survived.
Even last year when NLUD participated in the CLAT meeting as an observer there was a consensus that they might join in 2023 but it seems that talks failed recently and Bajpai decided to forge it alone. Two things happened 1) FM was ejected from the CLAT scene, 2) In Bajpai, NLUD has found someone who has excellent network to resist the pressures from CLAT consortium
So, it is more due to a series of coincidences and the continued greed of NLUD admin that AILET has survived, rather than any other factors. Although we may also argue that there is a continued fear amongst the NLUD stakeholders that the CLAT aspirants may put it after NLIU/NLUJ and that would be disastrous for the image cultivated by NLUD.
- NLU ranking is NLSIU>NLUD>NALSAR>NUJS>GNLU>NLIU>RGNUL>RMLNLU>NLU Ranchi>NLU Assam >NLUO. This is fine, except for the fact that NLUJ should be included and ranked below GNLU and above NLIU. Also, HNLU should be included and ranked below RMLNLU and above NLU Ranchi.
- NLSIU retains 100/100 perception rank for the 7th year running, as well as a very good faculty research score. This remains the biggest reason why NLSIU remains #1.
- The graduate outcomes (placements) score for NLSIU, NLUD, NALSAR and NUJS are almost the same., but the research and perception score much lower than NLSIU.
- NUJS has an extremely poor perception rank of 50/100, the lowest among all the major NLUs. But its placement score is above NLUD and NALSAR.
Thus, if any college wants to overtake NLSIU, it needs to need up faculty research and perception: essentially, do what Sudhir is doing by hiring well-qualified faculty.
The 2023 NIRF rankings are out. I am sure there will be plenty of comments and the usual trolling about it soon enough. I just wanted to leave behind a few observations from my side. For transparency's sake, I am an NLS grad myself (between 2016-2018, cannot be more specific in case someone I know comes across this), worked in a firm for a few years, did a foreign LLM, came back to work for a policy body, planning to do a PhD from abroad next and then return to Indian academia. As such, I have more than considerable interest in the Indian legal education sector, and I would really like to see the universities, especially the public ones, do well and their students prosper. I do not believe that grads from my alma are inherently superior in any way, though they do happen to enjoy a few advantages and privileges. So given that background, here goes my observations about the 2023 rankings. I have been a critique of NIRF and its methodology in the past, but it is still the reality that we have to deal with.
1. The top 4 are more or less without any surprise. I think most people other than trolls would agree with it at this stage.
2. NLUJ is an important omission in this year. Jindal is another, but they have so far stayed out of this as a matter of policy. NLUJ has participated in the past. One wonders why they could not or did not participate in this year.
3. NLS has shown significant improvement (2.5 points overall from last year). Their teaching learning resources and graduate outcomes have dropped a little, but there is a huge jump in research and publications. This is probably because of all the new hires and the new admin encouraging the faculty to publish more.
4. The perception ranking, always a subject of criticism directed at NIRF, does not disappoint this year either. There are many examples of this, but let us just consider a couple for now. NUJS' perception score has dropped hard to 50, which cannot be accounted for by any specific reason, since it has apparently done well in all other parameters, thereby mitigating the damage to the overall score. In fact, without the perception score, the overall scores of NLUD, NALSAR and NUJS across other parameters are 274.54, 271.91, and 272.79 respectively, so not really much to choose from these 3 yet. I would personally have favoured NLUD over the other 2 myself had I been joining law school now, but that is because I believe that an enterprising law student can make excellent use of the proximity to Delhi (SC, law firms etc.) and there is no harm in having better infra and hostel even if it is not essential to my studies. I honestly have not seen any qualitative difference between the grads of NLS, NALSAR, NLUD and NUJS in the industry or academia, but I don't want to get into that debate at all. Even without the perception score, the top 4 would have remained almost the same, with NUJS and NALSAR swapping their positions, that's all. What makes this perception score of NUJS completely ridiculous is that universities like Symbi and Christ have scored 65 and 61, and ILI Delhi has scored 74! I do not know how this score is calculated, because NIRF has never revealed objective details, but based on what they do reveal on their websites, academics prefer to join Symbi, Christ and ILI over NUJS and industry people prefer the grads of Christ, ILI and Symbi a lot over NUJS grads. Both of these, I can speak from experience, are bollocks! My own alma may have enough legacy achievements and current positive developments to merit a high perception score, but scoring 100/100 is really a bit too much. I really hope that NIRF would either scrap this parameter altogether or reveal objectively verifiable details about how it is calculated.
5. Jamia comes up two notches this year (7 to 5). This place has been doing steadily better in these rankings (got the 7th rank couple of times before, 8th and 9th once each). I honestly don't know much about the place, having met only a few grads from there, but if it can keep this up, then hopefully, its placement scene will improve eventually, which will be a good thing for the students.
6. I had hoped GNLU to have a better rank in this year, maybe within top 5, but it still does not seem to have figured out how to make that leap yet. It was doing well till 2021 (highest rank: 6), but lagged a little behind since then. This year it too has been hit by the perception monster though, scoring only 53 in that front.
7. Symbi is back to the middle of the top 10, after having a meteoric rise to 3 last year. As I mentioned earlier, its perception score is a bit of an enigma. It has one of the lowest research and publication scores though, should focus on it much more.
8. The enigmatic Siksha O Anusandhan still retains a top 10 position (in fact, it has improved its ranking from 9 to 8) and has a perception score that is not that far from NUJS or GNLU. I confess that I haven't met anyone from this place yet, only seen their ads. Which is what surprises me, given their rank.
9. IIT KGP has fallen from 6 to 9 this year, their teaching learning resources having taken a hit, which even an increased research score could not offset entirely.
10. The new entrant in the top 10 is Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow. Previously, it was a college, and had ranked the last in 2018 (10th) and 2019 (15th). Since then, it had not featured till this year. Again, I know a couple of grads from there who are into litigation, don't know much about the place.
11. KIIT, AMU, Saveetha, Sastra and LPU are featuring in the 11-16 zone, with the order having changed a little from last year. Christ comes up to 13 this year, with a robust perception score. BHU has dropped from 20 to 22.
12. NLIU Bhopal continues to languish, having dropped 3 places from last year (15 to 18) and barely remains within the top 20. Unfortunate to see one of the older NLUs gradually dropping through the ranks. A little surprising given their alumni base and decent placements. Their infra is not bad there, though location is a problem.
13. HNLU continues to remain out of the ranking, which one would have thought would change after VCV took over as the VC. They don't seem to be ready enough for this yet.
14. NLUO has slipped a few spots and just retained a rank within 30 (25 last year). NLUJA has dropped from 24 to 28 in this year, though I am not sure how it continues to remain ahead of NLUO (the teaching learning resources score is the only parameter in which it is ahead in this year).
15. RGNUL and RMLNLU both have slipped a few spots in this year, though remains within top 30. NUSRL has dropped from 22 to 24. NUALS still has not come back after 2021.
16. 3 new private universities have joined the fray in this year, Alliance from Bengaluru, Nirma from Gujarat, and Manipal from Jaipur. UPES, which was there at a respectable 21 rank last year, is not there at all in this year. Amity Gurgaon has come up from 27 last year to 23 in this year and Army Law Institute maintains the same 26th position.
17. The 3 MNLUs, CNLU, TNNLU, DSNLU, NLU Sonepat, NLU Tripura are still not here. The last 2 may be too new, but the others should have been around somewhere. At least CNLU, DSNLU have been around for long enough.
That's it from my side. These are all objective quant observations apart from my little rant about the perception score, which has got several quant points in support. I honestly don't care about the upvoting, downvoting or trolling. People may do any or all of those and/or comment/ troll to their hearts' content. So long as they take some interest in the legal education sector here. If I get time, I will publish a detailed analysis of all NIRF data over the last few years some day. Till then, cheers!
Hightime We Disregard NIRF Rankings? (IT IS USELESS)
The 2023 rankings are as follows:
1. National Law School of India University - Bengaluru, Karnataka
2. National Law University - New Delhi, Delhi
3. Nalsar University of Law - Hyderabad, Telangana
4. The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences - Kolkata, West Bengal
5. Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi - New Delhi, Delhi
6. Symbiosis Law School - Pune, Maharashtra
7. Gujarat National Law University - Gandhinagar, Gujarat
8. Siksha O Anusandhan - Bhubaneswar, Odisha
9. Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur - Kharagpur, West Bengal
10. Babasheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University - Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
11. Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences - Chennai, Tamil Nadu
12. Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology - Bhubaneswar, Odisha
13. Christ University - Bengaluru, Karnataka
14. Aligarh Muslim University - Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
15. Shanmugha Arts Science Technology & Research Academy - Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
16. Lovely Professional University - Phagwara, Punjab
17. Indian Law Institute - New Delhi, Delhi
18. National Law Institute University - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
19. Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University - New Delhi, Delhi
20. The Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law - Patiala, Punjab
21. Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University - Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
22. Banaras Hindu University - Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
23. Amity University Haryana - Gurugram, Haryana
24. National University of Study & Research in Law - Ranchi, Jharkhand
25. Alliance University - Bengaluru, Karnataka
26. Army Institute of Law, Sector-68 - Mohali, Punjab
27. Nirma University - Ahmedabad, Gujarat
28. National Law University and Judicial Academy - Kamrup, Assam
29. Manipal University Jaipur - Jaipur, Rajasthan
30. National Law University - Cuttack, Odisha
I can wrap my head around the frivolous contentions one might have with the ranking like NLUD>NALSAR/ Symbiosis>GNLU/ RGNUL>RMLNLU but this is RIDICULOUS. On further inspection, I came to realise that it's not as rigged as one might think.
The parameters:
1. Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR):
- Student Strength including Doctoral Students (SS): Represents the total number of students enrolled in the institution, including doctoral students. It is calculated based on factors such as undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) student numbers.
- Faculty-student ratio with emphasis on permanent faculty (FSR): This ratio indicates the number of students per faculty member in the institution, with a focus on permanent faculty members.
- Combined metric for Faculty with Ph.D. (or equivalent) and Experience (FQE): This represents the combined score for faculty members who possess a Ph.D. degree or its equivalent and have relevant experience.
- Financial Resources and their Utilisation (FRU): Reflects the financial resources available to the institution and how effectively they are utilized.
2. Research and Professional Practice (RP):
- Combined metric for Publications (PU): Measures the number of research publications from the institution.
- Combined metric for Quality of Publications (QP): Evaluates the quality of the research publications, considering factors such as citations and impact.
- Footprint of Projects and Professional Practice (FPPP): Indicates the involvement of the institution in projects and professional practice.
3. Graduation Outcomes (GO):
- Combined metric for Placement and Higher Studies (GPH): Reflects the percentage of students placed in jobs or pursuing higher studies after graduation.
- Metric for University Examinations (GUE): Evaluates the performance of students in university examinations.
- Median Salary (GMS): Represents the median salary earned by graduates from the institution.
- Metric for Number of Ph.D. Students Graduated (GPHD): Measures the number of Ph.D. students successfully completing their degrees.
4. Outreach and Inclusivity (OI):
- Percentage of Students from Other States/Countries (Region Diversity RD): Represents the percentage of students enrolled from other states within the country or other countries.
- Percentage of Women (Women Diversity WD): Indicates the percentage of female students enrolled in the institution.
- Economically and Socially Challenged Students (ESCS): Evaluates the representation and support provided to economically and socially challenged students.
- Facilities for Physically Challenged Students (PCS): Reflects the availability of facilities and support for students with physical disabilities.
5. Perception (PR):
- Peer Perception: Employers & Academic Peers (PR): Represents the perception of the institution among employers and academic peers.
At first glance, you might not be able to discern the premeditated fallacies behind these rankings.
The truth lies in the calculations of these parameters, for example, SS would take into account the number of students enrolled under the Ph.D. course which would inherently put institutes that don't enroll higher Ph.D. candidates at a disadvantage as per the devised formula.
If we take a look at the weightage of FSR & FQE, we would find that it rewards more for the quantity of the faculty members rather than the quality of them. You can take FSR (30 marks) simply as a student-faculty ratio, while the FQE only takes into account those faculties that are Ph.D. + accounts for the experience they have. Some universities scored full on FSR but struggled to fetch even 10 marks in FQE.
ESCS which evaluates the representation and support provided to economically and socially challenged students is calculated on the basis of the percentage of UG students being provided FULL tuition fee reimbursement by the institution to pursue their degree programs. I mean- there are programmes in many NLUs/private unis where they award percentage scholarships for meritorious students coming from SC/ST category but this doesn't take it into account until and unless it is fully covered, I don't get why.
Coming to the PR (Peer Perception) scores, they are by far the most rigged aspect of the ranking. NUJS scored a humble 50.8, while Christ University and Indian law institute astonishingly scored 61.15 and 74.17 respectively. Apart from the Top 3, none of the universities managed to get close to Rizzed perception of these two institutes.
To sum it up, this is a pretty useless ranking with no real-world application, going by the metrics alone I wouldn't be surprised if an unknown university manages to beat NLS if it really wants to. And the most significant things that a student realistically looks upon are placements and scope for higher education which doesn't seem to be a priority here since it constitutes just 16.25% of all the parameters.
I guess you are too young to remember that 12-13 years ago (before CLAT) all NLUs (which were operational then) had their own entrance exam and all of them were thriving. Then a concerted effort by students and a couple of NGOs led to the creation of CLAT after a court order.
NLUD was being created around this time and Ranveer Singh was the first VC. He calculated that it would be helpful to have a different exam as NLUD was unknown at the time and it would have ranked no. 8 or 9 in the preference list of the students if it was to be part of CLAT (as we have seen the initial ranks get ossified and rarely changes massively). Also, AILET gave a nice boost to income for the uni, he also publicly declared at the time that all NLUs had profited from their own entrance exam in the formative years to build a corpus and that chance should not be taken away from NLUD.
Shamnad Basheer decided that NLUD should be make party to the order and he was pursuing it around 2012, but other events took place and this was never pursued, and AILET survived.
Even last year when NLUD participated in the CLAT meeting as an observer there was a consensus that they might join in 2023 but it seems that talks failed recently and Bajpai decided to forge it alone. Two things happened 1) FM was ejected from the CLAT scene, 2) In Bajpai, NLUD has found someone who has excellent network to resist the pressures from CLAT consortium
So, it is more due to a series of coincidences and the continued greed of NLUD admin that AILET has survived, rather than any other factors. Although we may also argue that there is a continued fear amongst the NLUD stakeholders that the CLAT aspirants may put it after NLIU/NLUJ and that would be disastrous for the image cultivated by NLUD.
https://www.timesnownews.com/education/nirf-ranking-2023-law-nlsui-bangalore-vs-nlu-delhi-complete-list-of-top-law-colleges-article-100756748
https://www.nirfindia.org/2023/LawRanking.html
- NLU ranking is NLSIU>NLUD>NALSAR>NUJS>GNLU>NLIU>RGNUL>RMLNLU>NLU Ranchi>NLU Assam >NLUO. This is fine, except for the fact that NLUJ should be included and ranked below GNLU and above NLIU. Also, HNLU should be included and ranked below RMLNLU and above NLU Ranchi.
- NLSIU retains 100/100 perception rank for the 7th year running, as well as a very good faculty research score. This remains the biggest reason why NLSIU remains #1.
- The graduate outcomes (placements) score for NLSIU, NLUD, NALSAR and NUJS are almost the same., but the research and perception score much lower than NLSIU.
- NUJS has an extremely poor perception rank of 50/100, the lowest among all the major NLUs. But its placement score is above NLUD and NALSAR.
Thus, if any college wants to overtake NLSIU, it needs to need up faculty research and perception: essentially, do what Sudhir is doing by hiring well-qualified faculty.
1. The top 4 are more or less without any surprise. I think most people other than trolls would agree with it at this stage.
2. NLUJ is an important omission in this year. Jindal is another, but they have so far stayed out of this as a matter of policy. NLUJ has participated in the past. One wonders why they could not or did not participate in this year.
3. NLS has shown significant improvement (2.5 points overall from last year). Their teaching learning resources and graduate outcomes have dropped a little, but there is a huge jump in research and publications. This is probably because of all the new hires and the new admin encouraging the faculty to publish more.
4. The perception ranking, always a subject of criticism directed at NIRF, does not disappoint this year either. There are many examples of this, but let us just consider a couple for now. NUJS' perception score has dropped hard to 50, which cannot be accounted for by any specific reason, since it has apparently done well in all other parameters, thereby mitigating the damage to the overall score. In fact, without the perception score, the overall scores of NLUD, NALSAR and NUJS across other parameters are 274.54, 271.91, and 272.79 respectively, so not really much to choose from these 3 yet. I would personally have favoured NLUD over the other 2 myself had I been joining law school now, but that is because I believe that an enterprising law student can make excellent use of the proximity to Delhi (SC, law firms etc.) and there is no harm in having better infra and hostel even if it is not essential to my studies. I honestly have not seen any qualitative difference between the grads of NLS, NALSAR, NLUD and NUJS in the industry or academia, but I don't want to get into that debate at all. Even without the perception score, the top 4 would have remained almost the same, with NUJS and NALSAR swapping their positions, that's all. What makes this perception score of NUJS completely ridiculous is that universities like Symbi and Christ have scored 65 and 61, and ILI Delhi has scored 74! I do not know how this score is calculated, because NIRF has never revealed objective details, but based on what they do reveal on their websites, academics prefer to join Symbi, Christ and ILI over NUJS and industry people prefer the grads of Christ, ILI and Symbi a lot over NUJS grads. Both of these, I can speak from experience, are bollocks! My own alma may have enough legacy achievements and current positive developments to merit a high perception score, but scoring 100/100 is really a bit too much. I really hope that NIRF would either scrap this parameter altogether or reveal objectively verifiable details about how it is calculated.
5. Jamia comes up two notches this year (7 to 5). This place has been doing steadily better in these rankings (got the 7th rank couple of times before, 8th and 9th once each). I honestly don't know much about the place, having met only a few grads from there, but if it can keep this up, then hopefully, its placement scene will improve eventually, which will be a good thing for the students.
6. I had hoped GNLU to have a better rank in this year, maybe within top 5, but it still does not seem to have figured out how to make that leap yet. It was doing well till 2021 (highest rank: 6), but lagged a little behind since then. This year it too has been hit by the perception monster though, scoring only 53 in that front.
7. Symbi is back to the middle of the top 10, after having a meteoric rise to 3 last year. As I mentioned earlier, its perception score is a bit of an enigma. It has one of the lowest research and publication scores though, should focus on it much more.
8. The enigmatic Siksha O Anusandhan still retains a top 10 position (in fact, it has improved its ranking from 9 to 8) and has a perception score that is not that far from NUJS or GNLU. I confess that I haven't met anyone from this place yet, only seen their ads. Which is what surprises me, given their rank.
9. IIT KGP has fallen from 6 to 9 this year, their teaching learning resources having taken a hit, which even an increased research score could not offset entirely.
10. The new entrant in the top 10 is Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow. Previously, it was a college, and had ranked the last in 2018 (10th) and 2019 (15th). Since then, it had not featured till this year. Again, I know a couple of grads from there who are into litigation, don't know much about the place.
11. KIIT, AMU, Saveetha, Sastra and LPU are featuring in the 11-16 zone, with the order having changed a little from last year. Christ comes up to 13 this year, with a robust perception score. BHU has dropped from 20 to 22.
12. NLIU Bhopal continues to languish, having dropped 3 places from last year (15 to 18) and barely remains within the top 20. Unfortunate to see one of the older NLUs gradually dropping through the ranks. A little surprising given their alumni base and decent placements. Their infra is not bad there, though location is a problem.
13. HNLU continues to remain out of the ranking, which one would have thought would change after VCV took over as the VC. They don't seem to be ready enough for this yet.
14. NLUO has slipped a few spots and just retained a rank within 30 (25 last year). NLUJA has dropped from 24 to 28 in this year, though I am not sure how it continues to remain ahead of NLUO (the teaching learning resources score is the only parameter in which it is ahead in this year).
15. RGNUL and RMLNLU both have slipped a few spots in this year, though remains within top 30. NUSRL has dropped from 22 to 24. NUALS still has not come back after 2021.
16. 3 new private universities have joined the fray in this year, Alliance from Bengaluru, Nirma from Gujarat, and Manipal from Jaipur. UPES, which was there at a respectable 21 rank last year, is not there at all in this year. Amity Gurgaon has come up from 27 last year to 23 in this year and Army Law Institute maintains the same 26th position.
17. The 3 MNLUs, CNLU, TNNLU, DSNLU, NLU Sonepat, NLU Tripura are still not here. The last 2 may be too new, but the others should have been around somewhere. At least CNLU, DSNLU have been around for long enough.
That's it from my side. These are all objective quant observations apart from my little rant about the perception score, which has got several quant points in support. I honestly don't care about the upvoting, downvoting or trolling. People may do any or all of those and/or comment/ troll to their hearts' content. So long as they take some interest in the legal education sector here. If I get time, I will publish a detailed analysis of all NIRF data over the last few years some day. Till then, cheers!
The 2023 rankings are as follows:
1. National Law School of India University - Bengaluru, Karnataka
2. National Law University - New Delhi, Delhi
3. Nalsar University of Law - Hyderabad, Telangana
4. The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences - Kolkata, West Bengal
5. Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi - New Delhi, Delhi
6. Symbiosis Law School - Pune, Maharashtra
7. Gujarat National Law University - Gandhinagar, Gujarat
8. Siksha O Anusandhan - Bhubaneswar, Odisha
9. Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur - Kharagpur, West Bengal
10. Babasheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University - Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
11. Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences - Chennai, Tamil Nadu
12. Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology - Bhubaneswar, Odisha
13. Christ University - Bengaluru, Karnataka
14. Aligarh Muslim University - Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
15. Shanmugha Arts Science Technology & Research Academy - Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
16. Lovely Professional University - Phagwara, Punjab
17. Indian Law Institute - New Delhi, Delhi
18. National Law Institute University - Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
19. Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University - New Delhi, Delhi
20. The Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law - Patiala, Punjab
21. Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University - Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
22. Banaras Hindu University - Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
23. Amity University Haryana - Gurugram, Haryana
24. National University of Study & Research in Law - Ranchi, Jharkhand
25. Alliance University - Bengaluru, Karnataka
26. Army Institute of Law, Sector-68 - Mohali, Punjab
27. Nirma University - Ahmedabad, Gujarat
28. National Law University and Judicial Academy - Kamrup, Assam
29. Manipal University Jaipur - Jaipur, Rajasthan
30. National Law University - Cuttack, Odisha
I can wrap my head around the frivolous contentions one might have with the ranking like NLUD>NALSAR/ Symbiosis>GNLU/ RGNUL>RMLNLU but this is RIDICULOUS. On further inspection, I came to realise that it's not as rigged as one might think.
The parameters:
1. Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR):
- Student Strength including Doctoral Students (SS): Represents the total number of students enrolled in the institution, including doctoral students. It is calculated based on factors such as undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) student numbers.
- Faculty-student ratio with emphasis on permanent faculty (FSR): This ratio indicates the number of students per faculty member in the institution, with a focus on permanent faculty members.
- Combined metric for Faculty with Ph.D. (or equivalent) and Experience (FQE): This represents the combined score for faculty members who possess a Ph.D. degree or its equivalent and have relevant experience.
- Financial Resources and their Utilisation (FRU): Reflects the financial resources available to the institution and how effectively they are utilized.
2. Research and Professional Practice (RP):
- Combined metric for Publications (PU): Measures the number of research publications from the institution.
- Combined metric for Quality of Publications (QP): Evaluates the quality of the research publications, considering factors such as citations and impact.
- Footprint of Projects and Professional Practice (FPPP): Indicates the involvement of the institution in projects and professional practice.
3. Graduation Outcomes (GO):
- Combined metric for Placement and Higher Studies (GPH): Reflects the percentage of students placed in jobs or pursuing higher studies after graduation.
- Metric for University Examinations (GUE): Evaluates the performance of students in university examinations.
- Median Salary (GMS): Represents the median salary earned by graduates from the institution.
- Metric for Number of Ph.D. Students Graduated (GPHD): Measures the number of Ph.D. students successfully completing their degrees.
4. Outreach and Inclusivity (OI):
- Percentage of Students from Other States/Countries (Region Diversity RD): Represents the percentage of students enrolled from other states within the country or other countries.
- Percentage of Women (Women Diversity WD): Indicates the percentage of female students enrolled in the institution.
- Economically and Socially Challenged Students (ESCS): Evaluates the representation and support provided to economically and socially challenged students.
- Facilities for Physically Challenged Students (PCS): Reflects the availability of facilities and support for students with physical disabilities.
5. Perception (PR):
- Peer Perception: Employers & Academic Peers (PR): Represents the perception of the institution among employers and academic peers.
At first glance, you might not be able to discern the premeditated fallacies behind these rankings.
The truth lies in the calculations of these parameters, for example, SS would take into account the number of students enrolled under the Ph.D. course which would inherently put institutes that don't enroll higher Ph.D. candidates at a disadvantage as per the devised formula.
If we take a look at the weightage of FSR & FQE, we would find that it rewards more for the quantity of the faculty members rather than the quality of them. You can take FSR (30 marks) simply as a student-faculty ratio, while the FQE only takes into account those faculties that are Ph.D. + accounts for the experience they have. Some universities scored full on FSR but struggled to fetch even 10 marks in FQE.
ESCS which evaluates the representation and support provided to economically and socially challenged students is calculated on the basis of the percentage of UG students being provided FULL tuition fee reimbursement by the institution to pursue their degree programs. I mean- there are programmes in many NLUs/private unis where they award percentage scholarships for meritorious students coming from SC/ST category but this doesn't take it into account until and unless it is fully covered, I don't get why.
Coming to the PR (Peer Perception) scores, they are by far the most rigged aspect of the ranking. NUJS scored a humble 50.8, while Christ University and Indian law institute astonishingly scored 61.15 and 74.17 respectively. Apart from the Top 3, none of the universities managed to get close to Rizzed perception of these two institutes.
To sum it up, this is a pretty useless ranking with no real-world application, going by the metrics alone I wouldn't be surprised if an unknown university manages to beat NLS if it really wants to. And the most significant things that a student realistically looks upon are placements and scope for higher education which doesn't seem to be a priority here since it constitutes just 16.25% of all the parameters.
Note: All the statistics are verified from the official website itself and if someone wants to look into the formulas then he/she shall go to: https://www.nirfindia.org/nirfpdfcdn/2022/framework/Law.pdf
A good article I read on this issue last year by GS Bajpai: Rankings that make no sense - The Hindu