India Today engineering college rankings 2008 raise eyebrows, yet again

To our dismay, and undoubtedly everyone else’s who has a certain estimate about engineering colleges, India Today’s 2008 ranking of the colleges has been more of a farce. The worst affected is the section of the society which believes on such rankings blindly. In one of my earlier articles (click here to read the article), I had pointed out grave shortcomings in their rankings for the year 2007. This time around, we have no shred of doubt left in our minds that such rankings are but a means to create sensationalism. In the next few lines, I’d present a very brief post-mortem of this year’s ranking which should justify my statements.

Firstly, the ranking method adopted by the organization states that they had experts from each of the major cities giving scores to the colleges in their own city. It’s strange as to how one could compare statistics from two different people about two different colleges. Anyways, following is a snapshot of the rank list they gave this year:

The factual ranks given to IIT Mumbai and IIT Chennai are laughable, to say the least. It is no rocket science that I'd have to explain as to why this is a farce. Any given day, no NIT could match these two institutes as far as any of the parameters considered for the ranking are concerned. Institutes like these and other IITs along with DCE, NSIT and NITs languish a certain Vellore Institue of Technology in factual rank could only be a stunt to create sensationalism, as stated earlier. I would come to the scintillating drop in ranks suffered by International Institute of Technology, Allahabad. And ohh yes!!! they yet again, conveniently forget to mention anywhere in there analysis, that certain institutes like BITS Pilani were not considered in the rankings because these institutes opted out. They could fathom the superfluousness in these rankings, for which I respect them.

I don't have to bring out the finer points, but even an inexperienced eye would note unexplainable statistics. I'd rather want to bring forth a comparison with last year's rank list India Today came up with. Here's a snapshot for engineering ranks 2007:
Now, the real fun begins. Check out the ranks obtained by IIIT Allahabad across all the parameters last year. It ranked 9th in all of them. And now check out the rank it obtained this year. 23rd in most of them. Are you kidding me!!! What could possibly happen in a span of just one year which could see the institute dropping to 23rd from 9th in parameters like infrastructure and job prospects. Either, there was a bomb explosion in the institute which robbed it off all its infrastructure (which is improbable since I didn't see anything of that sort in the news), or the other 14 institutes which fared better might suddenly have unearthed treasure in their campuses which enabled them to build on infrastructure better than IIIT Allahabad. Also, there must certainly have been a drop in the number of companies also because of that non-existent bomb explosion thereby explaining the poor performance in job prospects this time....what a joke!!! but then, that's what the 'famous' India Today suggests.

Go a step further and check out the 'factual ranks' given to IIT Chennai and Kharagpur last year and compare them to this year. Chennai, unfortunately, did something so bad this year, that it sky-rocketed the institute from being ranked 5th last year to 21st this time. They surely must be doing everything bad at the moment - maybe the government stopped flowing in the cash to build on its infrastructure, the companies might have thought why go all the way south to hire students, and the professors suddenly must have become hostile to the students because of the students not performing well thereby hurting the 'student care' parameter too. Wow!!! the ranks really rock, don't they??

And Kharagpur. Great, they could leap from the 10th spot last year (just imagine!!!) to the 2nd spot this time. Everything bad and vicious that might've happened in Chennai was probably reverted in Kharagpur.

Nahh....leave it.
I wish to say no more. You are intelligent enough to judge the authenticity and credibility of such rankings. What I'd appeal to you is not to go by these ranking lists and inquire about an institute properly before taking any decision. What is sensationalism(wow!!! i actually managed that word the third time, credit that to India Today) to such media houses, is future for you. Don't let your career be a puppet in their hands.

Would like to know your views on the topic. Please drop in your comments.

Very soon, I'd be posting the ranks of colleges in a unique way, after proper deliberation with a view to help students decide as to which would be a better option for them.

Check out the review at http://sultanofsamarkand.blogspot.com/2008/05/indiatoday-2008-t-school-rankings.html - a very interesting take at the rankings :)

All views are solely mine and are not expressed to demean the India Today group in any way. It's a voice raised against the system of ranking colleges and the lack of proper research before releasing these without realizing the impact it could have on the careers of innumerable students.