There's more to write about Goa.. but I interrupt to comment on the continuing saga of the 'India Today College rankings'. The latest edition is out and has some very strange results indeed - as far as Mumbai is concerned.
The top 5 Arts colleges in Mumbai:
1. Xaviers
2. Elphinstone (?!)
3. Sophia
4. Mithibai
5. Bhavan's
It gets worse.
The top 5 science colleges in Mumbai:
1. Xavier's
2. Elphinstone
3. Sophia
4. Bhavan's
5. Ruparel
And here's the really crazy bit.
Top 5 colleges in Mumbai for commerce
1. Xavier's
2. Bhavan's (???!!)
3. Podar
4. Somaiya
5. Mulund college of commerce
No Narsee Monjee, no HR or Sydenham. Xaviers - which runs an evening college for working students and Bhavan's - which is definitely nowhere among the average student's top 5 choices.
What is India Today thinking? Are the results of a 'survey' to be taken as the Gospel Truth - whether or not they reflect actual ground reality?
Just to briefly touch on some of the other glaring errors:
a) Medicine: Grant medical college makes it to the 'top 10' in India while the most wanted by students - G S Medical college (KEM) - is nowhere.
b) BITS Pilani does not feature in top 10 engineering colleges
c) Xavier's is ranked # 2 in commerce ALL OVER INDIA.
What went wrong
For several years now JAM has analysed how and why these rankings - esp for Mumbai -are SO glaringly wrong:
a) The methodology of the AC Nielsen ORG Marg survey sucks. Getting 350 academics to rank 400 colleges across 8 cities just does not work.
b) Halo effect. The once glorious Elphinstone - which is NOT a top choice today - gets a high score from the 'experts' - most of whom are 40 + at the very least.
c) There can be minor disputes about whether X or Y college deserves to be ranked 3 or 4 but not whether it deserves to be ranked in the top 5 at all!
Bottomline: Sadly, the editors at India Today just don't care about the impact the results they publish may have on parents and college aspirants. They just need to sell copies year after year. Which means 'shocking' (and unbelievable) results like ILS law college Pune being ranked ahead of National Law School, Bangalore....
JAM will be out with its own rankings soon... Correction, we will provide RATINGS which would be of help to prospective students... More in my next post!
