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Gauri Chhabra
After finishing Class XII most students find themselves at crossroads. The confusion is not only about their career goals but also about the choice of right college. In world driven by marketing and brand image, all institutions aggressively advertise and market themselves as the best and top notch player. Here are some key pointers that will come in handy in case you need to assess the true worth of a college:
Good in one, not so in others
Many students as well as parents scan college rankings to help make a decision. But one should not forget that academic prestige can be examined on a smaller scale too. A school that excels in biology, for example, may have a less regarded history department. It is better to do some research or reach out directly to faculty members in your prospective department. Give extra consideration to a college whose faculty members are still actively engaged with employers in a given field, as this can open doors to internships, research opportunities, and jobs.
Placement record
College life is not just about fun and games only. At the end of the day, almost all of us would want to become employable and be financially independent. Getting good placements can kick start one's career. So do your research, and find out in which colleges the companies of your interest come for placement and whether they offer jobs/profiles that suit you. You never know, maybe your dream company doesn't even go to the college whose cut off you missed by 0.25 per cent. When you look at the placement data, do not just look at the data that shows you the highest placement, look for overall strike ratio. At times, the placement data may be just a window dressed to showcase only the highest packages.
Quality of the faculty
Other things being equal, when it comes to choosing between an elite college and a small one, the quality of faculty and staff can be an important factor. So, if you know roughly what you want to study, make sure to visit that specific department, or a few departments in the right general area, and get a sense of that environment as well. Are the faculty members willing to talk to you, as a prospective student, and make you feel welcome?
More importantly, are they making the students, already enrolled, comfortable? If you visit a department and see students hanging around working together or working with faculty, that's a great sign. If you go there on a weekday afternoon and the place is a ghost town that suggests that students aren't comfortable being there, which should make you feel concerned.
Also, make sure the resources that a prospective college or university provides will be available to you. Having world-class research labs is a great thing, but if these are entirely controlled by grad students and post-docs, they'll make very little difference to your experience as an undergraduate.
Best of the Best
The NIRF India ranks colleges in India in 9 categories, including Overall, Universities, Engineering, Colleges, Management, Pharmacy, Medical, Architecture, and Law. More than 4,000 institutes had submitted their data for NIRF ranking this year.
NIRF Ranking 2019
Overall
NIRF Ranking 2019
Universities
5
8
9