India’s Best Colleges

Exciting new winners emerge as for the first time Top 50 ranks are accorded to arts, science and commerce streams

PICTURE SPEAK

With the inclusion of two new cities, colleges in non-metros have pushed their way into the honours list

Be the best you can be. That’s the big message from this year’s INDIA TODAY-AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG’s annual survey of academic excellence. Institutes that adhered to that simple guideline have raced ahead of the pack and taken pride of place at the podium. As did the National Law School of India University (NLSIU). Barring one fall in 2005, the university has once again retained its position as the country’s premier law school. Ask why, and NLSIU vice-chancellor A. Jayagovind says, with no pun intended, “We are constantly pushing the bar. We want our students to be at the cutting edge.”

2007 - BEST OF THE BEST

ARTS LOYOLA COLLEGE Chennai 2006 (St. Xavier’s, Mumbai), 2005 (LSR, Delhi), 2004 (Loyola, Chennai) COMMERCE SHRI RAM COLLEGE OF COMMERCE Delhi 2006 (SRCC, Delhi), 2005 (SRCC, Delhi), 2004 (SRCC, Delhi) SCIENCE LOYOLA COLLEGE Chennai 2006 (Loyola, Chennai), 2005 (Loyola, Chennai), 2004 (Presidency, Chennai) LAW NATIONAL LAW SCHOOL OF INDIA UNIVERSITY Bangalore 2006 (NLSIU, Bangalore), 2005 (I.L.S. Law College, Pune), 2004 (NLSIU, Bangalore) ENGINEERING INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Kanpur 2006 (IIT-Delhi), 2005 (IIT-Delhi), 2004 (IIT-Kanpur) MEDICINE ALL INDIA INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES Delhi 2006 (AIIMS, Delhi), 2005 (AIIMS, Delhi), 2004 (AIIMS, Delhi)

It’s a quality all the winners exhibit, apart from a dazzling array of other attributes that have made them the champions they are. In engineering, in a never-ending game of one-upmanship among the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), IIT-Kanpur has grabbed the top slot this year. No doubt this would cause much heartburn among its namesakes in the other cities. But at IIT-Kanpur, apart from focus and cutting-edge, students are encouraged to constantly engage in out-of-the-box thinking. “To be inventive, you need to work outside the conventional framework—even if at times you are ridiculed for it,” says institute Director Sanjay Dhande.

Meanwhile, this year’s topper in medicine, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, or AIIMS, (yes, again) focuses on providing excellent infrastructure, state-of-the-art technology, opportunity for research and an enabling environment. AIIMS Director P. Venugopal says, “We inculcate in our students a zeal to excel in their specialisations.”

Then, there is Loyola College. That bastion of excellence has emerged tops in two major streams this year, arts and science—an outstanding achievement. The college has a nurturing approach and constantly endeavours to make its students not just good at academics, but also responsible citizens of the country. As Father A. Muthumalai, the Principal, says: “Our key differentiator is the emphasis on the overall development of all our 7,000 students.” The Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), the only institute with the unique distinction of topping the commerce ranking for the 11th consecutive year, takes the process even a step further. “The difference we make to students here is to groom them to become global entrepreneurs and not just managers employed in any other organisation,” says Principal P.C. Jain.

Now in its 11th year, the INDIA TODAY survey of academic excellence 2007 is perhaps the most comprehensive ever. Last year, for the first time, instead of Top 10, the rankings were extended to the Top 20 for all the six streams—arts, commerce, science, law, engineering and medicine. This year, in deference to requests from many heads of colleges, the survey, for the first time, lists the Top 50 centres of learning in the arts, science and commerce streams. For engineering, law and medicine colleges, the ranks have been extended to include the Top 25. To allow an even more balanced regional representation, two new cities—Jaipur and Kochi—were added to the existing 10: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pune and Lucknow. This resulted in the emergence of a host of new winners, with even non-metro colleges pushing their way into the honours list.

On the other hand, the exercise of collecting data and calculating the ranks, normally a complex process, was made even more so. With more than 18,064 colleges and 369 universities spread across the country, short-listing colleges to a manageable size is always a difficult task. As in the past, INDIA TODAY commissioned AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG, the country’s premier polling agency, to conduct the survey on its behalf. Building on the database collected over the years, bolstered by interviews with experts and scrutiny of reports from the Association of Indian Universities, among others, the polling agency drew up a list of 1,400 colleges.

METHODOLOGY

How the Ranking was Done To conduct the annual survey of academic excellence in India in the arts, science, commerce, law, engineering and medicine streams, INDIA TODAY commissioned ac Nielsen-ORG-MARG. To determine the ranking, an AC Nielsen-ORG-MARG team, comprising Ram Mohan Dhara, Deep Chowdhury, Mani Gupta and Maria Rani Tirkey, worked on a formula based on a perception score (from an opinion poll conducted among academic experts) and an objective score (factual data furnished by colleges). 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 Indian Universities Handbook, were used. Suggestions from experts were also taken into account. A comprehensive list of over 1,400 colleges was drawn up. To calculate the final score, over 1,100 experts—principals, heads of departments and deans in 12 cities, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Kochi, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune—were approached in March and April. After working out the familiarity quotient, the respondents were asked to distribute 100 points across seven vital parameters: reputation of the college, curriculum, quality of academic input, student care, admission procedure, infrastructure and job prospects. The most important parameter got the maximum point 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. Experts’ responses on their own colleges were excluded to minimise bias. Factual data was then collected for colleges that had received the top perceptual ratings. For factual ranking, all the parameters were rescaled to get a single score. To calculate the overall score, 70:30 weightages were assigned to perceptual and factual scores, respectively—the rationale being consistency with the previous year’s study. This methodology of ranking, based on both perceptual and factual data, provides a comprehensive picture of each college rated. This year, the survey has ranked the Top 50 colleges in arts, commerce and science and the Top 25 colleges in medicine, engineering and law. Step 1 A list of over 1,400 colleges in arts, commerce, science, engineering, medicine and law streams was prepared. Step 2 More than 600 colleges were shortlisted on the basis of the perception of 360 experts across 12 cities. Step 3 Another 540 experts were approached to get perceptual scores on seven parameters for the shortlisted colleges. On the basis of these scores, 270 colleges across all six streams were selected. Step 4 Factual information was collected from the selected colleges on parameters such as infrastructure, placements and faculty. Step 5 To get the overall score for the colleges, a weightage of 70:30 was applied to the perceptual and factual scores.

To home in on the best of these, representatives of the agency approached 360 experts, comprising principals, heads of departments and deans, across the 12 cities and from the six streams to shortlist 600 colleges based on their perception. Another 540 experts across the same spectrum were then interviewed to rank the colleges on the basis of seven key parameters, including reputation of the college, infrastructure and job placement. Relying on the perceptual score accorded by the experts, 270 colleges across all six streams were selected.

Colleges that expose their achievements to peer review are better placed to improve their rankings

Since the survey is heavily weighted in favour of the perceptions of experts, colleges that make it a point to expose their innovations and achievements to peer review are better placed to improve their rankings over the years. Those that make changes but do not make a noise about these in public would find recognition coming in slower. As Hollywood director Mel Brooks humourously put it, “If you’re alive, you got to flap your arms and legs, you got to jump around a lot, you got to make a lot of noise, because life is the very opposite of death. And, therefore, if you’re quiet, you’re not living.”

What the survey does is provide the 6,00,000 aspirants planning to enter college this summer a powerful torchlight with which to negotiate the maze and come up with some clear choices. Over the years, if INDIA TODAY’s survey has become an unofficial barometer of academic excellence, it is because the government’s efforts in this direction have never really made much headway.

For colleges that do not make it to the Top 10 rankings, it would be wise to remember the adage that the road to success is always under construction. By expanding the rankings to bring out 50 of the best colleges in the arts, science and commerce streams, the survey affords colleges that do not figure in the honours list an idea of just how far or near they are to the top.

As the survey has demonstrated over the years, the pinnacle is always a slippery slope and colleges that make the right changes and effort can zoom to the top. Remember what the Buddha said: “To know and not to do, is not to know.” So, do.

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