CURRENT ISSUE JUNE 05, 2006

2006 BEST OF THE BEST

Arts St. Xavier's College Mumbai 2005 (LSR, Delhi), 2004 (Loyola, Chennai), 2003 (Loyola, Chennai) Commerce SRCC Delhi 2005 (SRCC), 2004 (SRCC), 2003 (SRCC) Science LOYOLA College Chennai 2005 (Loyola, Chennai), 2004 (Presidency, Chennai), 2003 (Madras Christian College, Chennai) Engineering IIT Delhi 2005 (IIT Delhi), 2004 (IIT Kanpur), 2003 (IIT Kharagpur) Law NLSIU Bangalore 2005 (ILS, Pune), 2004 (NLSIU), 2003 (NLSIU) Medicine AIIMS Delhi 2005 (AIIMS), 2004 (AIIMS), 2003 (AIIMS

Yet to pin down excellence to perseverance may be limiting the pursuit. Despite its obvious tangibility, excellence also has plenty about it that is ethereal. So this year's arts topper St. Xavier's, Mumbai, approaches the quest in its own unique way. As its principal, Father Frazer Mascarenhas, puts it: "Despite the strict emphasis on discipline, students, teachers and I have a lot of fun on the campus." In a way, he echoes Disraeli who believed that "genius must be the production of enthusiasm".

METHODOLOGY

Step 1 A list of 700 colleges in the streams of arts, commerce, science, engineering, medicine and law was prepared using sources like the Internet and published materials. Step 2 More than 400 colleges were shortlisted on the basis of the perception of 90 experts such as college principals, HoDs and deans across 10 cities and the six streams. Step 3 A shortlist of 210 colleges was prepared based on the perceptual scores given by more than 400 experts on the basis of their weights and ratings on seven parameters. Step 4 Factual information collected for the shortlisted colleges on parameters such as infrastructure, placements and faculty was recoded on a scale to get the factual score. Step 5 To get the overall score for the colleges, a weightage of 70:30 was applied to the perceptual and factual scores. Colleges that did not provide factual data were not considered for the national rankings.

Other colleges which topped this year's rankings have followed differing paths in their search for excellence. IIT Delhi's director Surendra Prasad believes that getting a bunch of good students is not enough and is clear that excellence has to be something that is consciously "fostered and nurtured". Chennai's Loyola College, which retained the top slot in science, not only packs its classrooms with outstanding faculty, but emphasises, as its principal Father Albert Muthumalai does, that students must be "made socially conscious too".

Bangalore's National Law School of India University, which regained its No. 1 position in the law stream, endorses that approach while ensuring that the students are exposed, as its Vice-Chancellor A. Jayagovind puts it, "to a heavy dose of reality". And P. Venugopal, director, AIIMS, believes that the institute remains unchallenged in the medicine slot because of its "trinity of ideals- education, teaching and patient care-coupled with selfless service".

How the Ranking was Done

A team of AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG headed by Ram Mohan Dhara partnered with India Today to conduct the annual survey of the top 20 colleges in India in the arts, science, commerce, law, engineering and medicine streams. To determine the ranking, a formula based on a perception score (from an opinion poll conducted among academic experts) and an objective score (factual data furnished by colleges and collected from their websites) was evolved. Desk research was conducted to generate the list of colleges for the survey and secondary data sources like the Internet, published reports and the Association of India Universities Handbook were used. Suggestions from experts were also included. A comprehensive list of more than 700 colleges was drawn up. To calculate the perception score, more than 400 experts at the level of principals, heads of departments and deans in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Pune were contacted in the months of March and April. After working out the familiarity quotient, the respondents were asked to distribute 100 points across seven vital parameters: reputation of colleges, curriculum, quality of academic input, student-care, admission procedure, infrastructure and job prospects. The most important parameter got the maximum points and the least, the minimum. Each expert rated colleges in his or her field only. A statistical equation was used to calculate the overall perceptual score. Responses of experts rating their own colleges were excluded to minimise bias. Factual data was then collected for colleges that had received the top perceptual ratings. For the factual ranking, all the parameters were rescaled to get a single score. To calculate the overall score, a 70:30 weightage was assigned to perception and factual scores, respectively. The rationale was to provide consistency with the previous year's study. This methodology of ranking, based on both perception and factual data, provides a comprehensive picture of each college rated.

Over the past decade, India Today has strived to refine the methodology used to measure excellence and rank the colleges in order of merit. Given that there are 17,625 colleges and 342 universities involving about 105 lakh students, it is a mammoth task. AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG, the country's leading market research agency, worked out a sound statistical method to select the best. A key premise is that a college must not only be good but must also be perceived by its peers as so.

In order to build a credible perception score, the agency decided to get close to 500 experts from 10 major cities at the levels of principal, dean and head of department to rate colleges in their respective streams on seven critical parameters: reputation, curriculum, quality of academic input, student-care, admission procedure, infrastructure and job prospects. Factual data was then collected from the 200 colleges that made it to the shortlist according to a set format. The final ranking was worked out using a mathematical formula that gives a 70:30 weightage to perceptual and factual scores, respectively (see methodology box). Many colleges have pointed out that their recent improvements in infrastructure have not resulted in a change in their rankings. This is because perceptual scores are the key determinant and it would take time for such changes to register among experts.

The 2006 rankings saw some major improvements: Experts from two new cities, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh, were added to those from the existing eight-Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Lucknow-giving the survey an even broader base. Also, for the first time, we are presenting not just the top 10 ranks in each of the streams but also the best of the rest: from the 11th to the 20th position. Since the battle for the top slots is always a close race, it fulfils the demand by those who almost made it. We hope that this will give these colleges the inspiration to press on and challenge the existing toppers. For if there is one thing that India Today's winners have learnt in the past decade, it is that the top position is never a secure place.

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