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!
I can't comment about other streams...but in engineering i guess no college can beat the standards of IITs. As far as engineering college rankings, i feel it is in line with reality
ReplyDeleteI just made a post on the sorry state of magazine cover stories.If people are going to make career decisions based on such rankings it is going to be fatal.
ReplyDeletehttp://sambharmafia.blogspot.com/2005/06/magazine-covers-easily-predictable.html
As a Xavierite, I might be happy to see our college on the top.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Arts and the Sciences go, it's right up there with the other colleges. Coming to commerce, maybe not!
Oh well Rashmi. Well thought out argument. India Today needs to be criticised alright; but before your publication? Neh. Thats not fair. India Today brings out it's survey roughly aroud this time every year. Why not have objective criteria to rate the colleges?
ReplyDeleteNot fair since, the "surveys" would confuse the kids fresh out of school. I really wonder whether there is any truth in them; most of the kids prefer to reach out to those colleges which are recommended by peers; rather than fancy surveys. At best, there is a lot of underhand behind the scenes activity to bring out these surveys. Is there any financial disclosure? And what would you get out of these surveys anyway?
Think about it Rashmi. Why join the rat race and why not be "different"?
I want to ask only one thing to the editor Mr. Arun Poorie the story writer that whether based on these rankings he will allow his kith n kin to take admission in these colleges.
ReplyDeleteI have never seen these
.com/B.e/b.sc college rankings but i have closely observed rankings of b-schools.B-school rankings are really great scam .I have seen this scam very closely so now i dont bother to see ny rankings.
At last Following lines must be made mandatory alongwith with the Rankings
"FOLLOWING THESE RANKINGS MAY BE FATAL OR INJURIUS TO UR CARREAR."
he he ... reminds me of an article I came accross a few days back on how India needs more of "Newtons and Einsteins" and not "Edisons" :-)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure about this but I read somewhere that BITS Pilani did not participate in the survey as they have a case pending in the court with IT over last year's ranking.
ReplyDeleteI am happy though, that my alma mater BIT Mesra has made it to the top 10 for the first time.
I think that India Today has started resorting to sex surveys to sell itself. It has now become more of a cheap lifestyle magazine rather than a political magazine , it started out as.
ReplyDeleteprofound observation: I was a student of economics in Delhi University and it is extremely disgusting that inspite of the fact that the cut-off percentages in Delhi University are way above those of other universities, not many D.u. colleges feature in the all India rankings.
BITS opted out of India Today rankings 2005 June 6, 2005
ReplyDeleteBITS opted out of India Today’s survey of 2005 because of a pending court case between BITS and India Today. This explains why BITS does not figure in the India Today rankings. In 2004 when India Today gave its rankings it did not collect the data from BITS, Pilani even though it mentioned it did so. BITS questioned the validity of the data because there were many factual errors in India Today’s description of BITS. India Today did not accept the errors and hence BITS has gone to the court against India Today and the case is still pending.
http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/unews/fs_unews.html
Hi Rashmi,
ReplyDeleteIts not just about India Today, I have seen this with other publications churing out shit every year ad nauseum.. may be this is all sponsored.. but i would suggest people not to go by the rankings in these magazines today. i think indian print media definitely needs more competition and more serious players. Keeping my fingers crossed till then.
I think rankings are not so important but ratings do matter when you make a choice. ie which are the 'A+', 'A', 'B' category colleges - based on reputation, infrastructure, availabality of courses (and in case of B schools -placements).
ReplyDeleteAt JAM we generally use inputs from the peer group ie Arts students rate Arts colleges in their city and so on. And we use our own expert opinion.
So like I said we may dispute whether NM is the no 1 college for commerce in Bombay or whether it's Podar. But NOT including NM at all is a serious mistake.
Similarly, even if BITS Pilani declined to be included - why are NITs missing?
Surveys are only as good as the methodology used - and this one has not been working for many years now. If something is broke - it must be fixed!!
Seems like The India Today group has messed up the B School survey too
ReplyDeleteSee here
IIR,roorkee is one of the top technica institutes in india as well as in the world.India today as well as dataquest ratings are a big fraud.No NIT's as well as well as It-Bhu would ever gain standard to get rank above IITRoorkee.
ReplyDeleteTalking about B-Schools, I wonder how Amity college( whoever has heard of that college!) can be ranked in top 10....it just shows the sad plight of -
ReplyDelete1. Parameters used to rank colleges.
2. 'Brand value', which does count; though it has become a cliche..
3. Biased judgement
hi,
ReplyDeletethis is in response to the on going debate about the ranking list recently published by india today.
no doubt it is just illogical that none of the NIT's figured out in the list.
as far as my knowledge goes no doubt IIT'S are the best and i myself have felt so,being product of IITM.
but its not digestable that NIT TRICHY,NIT CALICUT or NIT SURATHKAL none have been rated though being at par with IIT'S
so its my personel opinion that INDIA TODAY rating is totally biased and unreliable,which should not be as many students due to lack of knowledge will take this as authentic info and may land up in wrong institute.
Mr. Deba is not aware of the name and heritage of " something called B.E College" and still feels confident enough to post his comments! He can only be advised to know more about the most reputed Engineering colleges in W.B., e.g., Jadavpur University (FET) and B.E. College, apart from IIT,KGP before posting such ridiculous comments.
ReplyDeleteyeah.. As far as engineering stream is concerned good colleges like PSG tech ,cbe have been left out..
ReplyDeleteI think that an unfair survey has been made by India Today. We cannot lament the fact that BITS,Pilani is one of the most important engineering college in India.Stil it could not find a place in Top 10 engineering colleges. We also cannot sideline the NIT's like those of Surathkal, Trichy,Nagpur,Bhopal ,etc.which provide great engineering training. These all Institutes are classified as A-class institutions. How come they could not find a place in Top 10 engineering Colleges survey?
ReplyDeletethe rankings are pathetic iits are not kings of enginnering this is reflected in their falling placements etc what about colleges like nit trichy ,pec,thapar
ReplyDeleteThe IIT,s definitely deserve a place in top-10.but its really funy 2 find NIT's(atleast 1)missing in top-10.The IDC-dataquest-NASSCOm survey says ther r 6 NIT's in top-20 n here???this is all crap as BIT,RAnchi n BEC r ranked ahead of NIT's
ReplyDeletehi friends,
ReplyDeletethese rating are baseless...as BITS pilani site tells us that last time BITS pilani was ranked 8th and they did not visit that campus at all...that is why BITS pilani has filed a case against INDIA TODAY..and that is why BITS pilani is out of top 10 engineering colleges...it suggests how biased are these rankings...so guys don't think much about these ranking....colleges like BITS-pilani does not require these type of ranking to publicise them...they are BEST IN TRUE SENSE(BITS)...
(To Rashmi) Great that you will publish your independent rankings. In the meantime Nero fiddles while Rome burns - isnt that what we are doing? Frankly WHO CARES about these rankings? We should really be ashamed of the fact that the best of the best in India (including the much vaunted IITs as folks like pal would have us believe) are still nowhere close to their counterparts in Japan, Korea or China (forget the rest of the world).
ReplyDeleteFor a reality check visit:
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm
So while scientists in Korea are busy with stem cell breakthroughs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4555023.stm
and financial times publishes an innovation index where india is nowhere to be found:
http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_808.html
we keep arguing about the differences in finishing second last and last.
check out this cartoon on the india today rakings... hilarious!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lawentrance.com/images/nairside11.jpg
Friends, the celebrations have begun (I mean Nero is actually fiddling!). Check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.iitk.ac.in/infocell/announce/toptech/
I am not sure as to why the educated elite do not care to keep themselves informed about the goings-on outside their four walls:
http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/unews/fs_unews.html
Could it actually be a bit of false pride perhaps?
I saw someone writing that the dataquest magazine gives proper rankings.
ReplyDeletebut these are worse than the india today ratings. i live in bangalore and am very surprised to see thas MVIT college is above all other colleges in bangalore. It is a rotten college with rotten teachers. rv is seen as the 2nd best in bangalore but i think that it is just banking on its past glory [most of the old teachers are leaving the college following the principal who left for rnsit]. PESIT has a mean, greedy and arrogant management; it is also very strict with stupid rules comparable with that of national public school [one of the worst schools, but with some of the best students - this is what happens in rv and pesit as well - all the students with good rankings join them because of the hype following them]. MS Ramaiah college which i therefore see as the best college espescially for computer science[cause it has good students and good teachers as well as the best lab in bangalore] doesnt even appear in the top 100 (may be they didnt participate in the rankings which is very respectable). In fact AICTE has cut seats from PESIT and other overrated colleges because of the lack of good infrastructure. BIT is a college which has lost a whooping 180 engineering seats but still appears in the rankings as one of the best in bangalore. Meanwhile MSRIT has in fact got 36 more seats this year. yes, msrit looks like a mosque - with one of the worst looing buildings in bangalore but what matters is what is inside. BMS is another good college in bangalore with a very transparent system unlike pesit who very transparently take donations (a min. of 7 lakhs even from students with respectable score - some pay upto 20 lakhs to get in - so, every year they make upto 7 crores through donations alone - imagine how much they would when their new college opens this year -- if u want to know why, it is because of baseless rankings and students who follow them blindly like goats).
I guess IIT is also very highly overrated- i think that nitk surathkal is better than iit guwahati or iit roorkee. It prospers only because the besst students only go there. It doesn't even recieve 10% of the average fundings of colleges in USA. IITs are just machines which export students from India to usa. Almost all students of iit who apply for h1b visas get them. Hardly any research goes on in iit because it is filled mostly of nerds(or normal students who have converted to nerds because of the education system followed in india) who can only learn but not apply. How many inventions/papers do u see from iit students. they become successful only because they are recruited by good companies where their mindsets change and they learn to apply. Meanwhile in the US or even our asian counterparts like NTU, Osaka university and Kyoto university contribute to most of the research and development in their feilds.
Coming to the education system, it sux.. not only the exams, but also the wastage of time in our lives. we spend atleast 30% of our lifes in schools and colleges. What is the use of studying history, etc. upto 10th. the school must go optional as science/commerce/arts in the 9th itself.
Also the level of education is very low until high school - i mean we're still studying division and multiplication in the sixth standard. stuff like newton's laws which we study in 11th can be solved by 7th std kids. we must have optional topics which are at a high level in each subject. what is the use of studying high level organic chemistry when u are aiming to be a computer engineer. on the other hand we could do with more high level maths in 11th and 12th because it will help us during engineering. but i dont think we'll ever see a change - not for another 200 years atleast.
In reply to the last comment, I would like to say that the allegation that no research goes on in IITs is totally wrong. In fact, the only technical research centres of any authority in India are the IITs, the IISc and TIFR.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is because of this, it is totally acceptable that the IITs feature among the top in this list. Individual rankings amongst IITs are a bit difficult to obtain as most of them are same in terms of facilities , faculty and recruitment. However, IITB enjoys a bit of an edge over the other IITs in almost all these fields (I am from IITKGP - so this statement is unbiased!).
It is true that we don't have the huge research budgets that foreign universities have at their disposal.
The institutes are government regulated and facility upgradation, as a result, is a slow process (but orders of magnitude faster than at any other institute in India - even the private ones). The level of research is increasing in the IITs both in terms of volume and technicality/applicability.
No. of papers published by students/faculty is deplorably less than those in other world-reknowned institutes but significantly higher than any other institute in India and this figure is also increasing steadily. The reason we don't fare well amongst the foreign universities is that we didn't get a head start!
Many of the top Asian universities are of significant world stature while the IITs fare relatively poorly. Some of this can be attributed to the Indian economic scenario as nothing drives research more than an open, competitive economy.
Come to think of it, the IITs have started gaining repute since the time our economy opened up. In a few years (probably 10-15 or so) from now - we would certainly feature prominently amongst the Top 100 or 50 (wishful!!)
Very unfortunate rankings. BEC is a state level college and should not be ranked at par with National Institutes. The most unfortunate entry was BIT Ranchi. I myself quit BIT Ranchi for an elite NIT. I think IT should be banned to publish any rankings. Does it have any scientific criteria for rankings? Ridiculous. Same goes with DataQuest rankings. very sad not to see NIT Nagpur and Bhopal in Dataquest rankings. Rankings should be based on reputation and the quality of students entering there. I don't see how a state level institution can have better quality of students then a national level institute of repute.
ReplyDeleteVery disappointed with rankings. Not good for people who are considering engineering education.
Glad to hear that Rashmi.This is 'sheer irresponsibilty'.
ReplyDeleteThey have aslo in the past picked a cram high school like PSBB and said it is one of the best in the country.
what makes it the best the no. of IITians it produces. I don't get it........
Makes me want to puke ........
BIT MESRA no doubt is one of best engg.colleges in country.
ReplyDeleteIT DESERVES TO BE RATED AMONG THE ELITE GROUP OF TOP TEN COLLEGES.
RATHER THIS WAS EXPECTED IN PAST YEARS TOO.
VERY NICE INDIA TODAY
I feel it very bad
ReplyDeletethough i do feel that the rankings are not reliable but saying that NIT suratkal or trichy is better than IIT -G or IIT -R is all crap.
ReplyDeletei know abt the education at NITs where 3 students stay in a single room and nothing happens except
gossiping and so called "bucket
party".the placements may be good
due to proximity to Bangalore but
the rest is all crap
hello rashmi,
ReplyDeleteeven I was shocked to know a little abt this survey in engg. section; IITs didn't find a place in the ranking. But whatever might the reasons be, JamMag's wya of surveying too may have its own loopholes.
Reliance on peers may reduce the survey to a popularity survey. For example students of Miranda in Delhi would rate low their rival college LSR. It would merely be a show of which college tops the list and might simply be a war of ego.
There should be a proper balance of weightage of peer rating, academician rating and some rating on certain parameters decided by the magazine. This way the college which is suitable to study(student), is suitable to teach in (teacher) and is conducive for study ( based on certain parameters which both groups might miss) would come at the top.
for camelpost
ReplyDeleteI like to clearup some dust raised by your arguments...
the first one concerning the admission process..Yes,JEE is trainable to some extent(for that matter,i dont think there is any exam which cant be trained to),but the pattern of the exam changes constantly to give an element of surprise for the examinees.
Initially,there was English language paper.Then in 1990's it had 3 separate subjective type papers in Maths,physics and Chemistry.Between 1997-2005, an objective test was held before the main subjective papers. And then in 2006 it was 3 separate papers in maths,physics and chemistry; and in 2007,it is going to be 2 papers.
A copy-cat of SAT model is not going to work in INDIA as it'll be disadvantageous to rural students who are poor in English.
And the perception that JEE cant be cracked without any coaching is wrong.I'm the proof for this.(I'm from a rural background,didnt have any classroom coaching,got an AIR-3070 in JEE-2005).JEE only demands strong fundamentals in class-12 maths,physics and chemistry(Its hyper hyped to those who lack that)
BITS admitted students based on board marks till 2004.That explains the board toppers phenomena.
And girls ratio!!...,this is one thing where i hope(!) IITs improve!! Anyway,it has nothing to do with student quality(how does it matter if its a boy or a girl!)
It might interest you to know that all IITs and many NITs give internet connection to all hostel rooms in the campus.
All IITs have compulsory
industrial training as a part of their course.haan bhai, ppl go to foreign companies also...
IITs were established by Govt. of INDIA to serve the people over here and not to be run commercially putting up a campus wherever demand exists. It might interest you to note that IIT-Kgp has 2 extension centres in kolkata and Bhubhaneshwar;A Hyderabad centre is in the pipeline.
Any such move by IIT kanpur as stated should be taken in positive stride(it indicates University-University linkages in the country naa,isnt it worth it).
check out the number of IITians working as faculty at BITS.Does that indicate something...
Frankly,I'm not aware of budget outlay of BITS.(May be I should use RTI)...and the index result(whatever it is) doesnt appear that obvious to me.
IITs were initially modelled on the lines of MIT but they adopted a system of their own with time.They didnt copy the system just like that...
All IITs have Entrepreneur
clubs which arrange workshops and meets regularly besides incubating student's ideas.
All said and done,I acknowledge BITS-pilani is an institute of very high repute. But its in our own interest that we dont make these rankings a big issue.
After all, the rankings are about general perception and nobody can putdown the fame IITs have earned for themselves all along.
Hey guys IIT is something and i wanna make my point very clear.Stop comparing it with NITs n BITS.
ReplyDeleteOkay leave JEE alone...now come in the iit system....its jee(every sem paper is like a jee,which requires no cramming ..application ..n only application) all the way long for ppl who are in iit. Students are exposed to the best competition ..they are competing against the best ..with papers which are draconian for the cramming toppers ..the toppers that go to BITS n all ....dats why they don come at iits ...becoz even the best flunk here !! I have seen the paper standard set at NITs n BITS...juzz compare the sem papers....n see for urself the kind of questions that are asked ...u'll get the answer !! So dont comment without knowing wat goes on in the system!!
lol!!
ReplyDeletedo u hv ne base before making criticks on bit mesra?first of all check the infrastructure,placements,hostel facilities & investments etc..then only u all should start discussions .i know it very well that bit mesra deserves what india today had shown us ! ok??
Hello Friends...
ReplyDeleteI just went thru one of the blogs by Mr. Anonymous and it provked me to write this piece. I am a passout of BIT Mesra and comments like Local college is really very insluting for our Community. I request you all not to use adjectives if you are not aware about the latest details.I firmly beleive that 6 IITs,BITS Pilani, Roorkee are the best colleges in India but the again just to say that somebody left a seat at BIT mesra to join NIIT doesnt mean that that particluar NIIT is better...as I had batchmates with IIT rank around 3100 who left there seat to join BIT.I had batchmates who left NIIT Trichy to join BIT Mesra.
If you think that BIT M lack in there intellectual pool,I would request you to gather more information b4 coming to any conclusions.
Guys we will have to be very rationale in whatever we write and not just use our red hat to come to any conclusions.
I totally agree with Saransh.
ReplyDeleteActually, even comparing BITs to an IIT is ridiculing it....since all of us know its real standing.
It's good to see NIRMA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY climbing up the rankings from 58 to 25 this time and I hope it makes in to top 15 next time
ReplyDeleteanu
ReplyDeleteif the standard of bits pilani is not grater than the IIT then it is not lesser also......
iits,bits pilani,DCE and nits were always the best engineering instiutions in the country and they will alwyays be.......
other institutions need to work much more to catch up the standards of these big ones.
anyways ,even big ones also have to work a lot to catch up with the big ones of US,UK and lot more.....
so why we fight amongst us, still much work is left.......
plzzzzzzzzzzzz help me i hav got 78.5 in hsc this yr i want to do bms,bba,b.com(hons) i dont know good colleges so plzzzzzzzzzz help me out plz mail me colleges from mumbai at affanorama@gmail.com plzzzzz
ReplyDeleteI study in private college of Bangalore and i am sorry to say that the so called good ranking of private colleges of Bangalore is fraudulent. As far as i know most of the seats of comedk are already sold for money starting at Rs 6 lacs per seats. For example PESIT EEE has 33% MQT students !!! So is the other story of other branches also. The only job of management here is to present a "rosy" picture of college which is inefficient and corrupt. The department also has only 1 Phd(HOD), rest of teachers hail from 3rd class background without any technical knowledge.
ReplyDelete