The 2016 first Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) preferences have just been published and the only big surprise in the list has been first-time CLAT participant and youngest national law school NLU Mumbai, which came in a very strong seventh position in preferences.
The Super 30 ranking devised by Legally India, calculates the average rank order of the 30 highest-ranked aspirants selecting the college, in order to normalise for larger batch sizes at colleges.
According to that metric, NLU Mumbai was just a tad below GNLU Gandhinagar, and even ahead of India’s sixth oldest national law school HNLU Raipur, eighth-oldest RMLNLU Lucknow, and ninth oldest RGNUL Patiala.
Other than that, the Super 30 preference order is virtually unchanged from 2014.
The strong performance of NLU Mumbai, which does not even have a permanent campus yet, suggests that NLU Delhi, which has a similarly strong locational advantage and an established campus, faculty and recruitments, would perform very strongly in aspirant preferences if it were to join the CLAT (something which it has managed to avoid to date).
More detailed analysis to follow.
| Super 30 score | Top ranked joiner | Order of founding | 2014 Super 30 Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NLSIU | 17.4 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Nalsar | 71.5 | 12 | 2 | 2 |
| NUJS | 133.0 | 9 | 4 | 3 |
| NLIU | 213.5 | 19 | 3 | 4 |
| NLU Jodhpur | 214.0 | 74 | 5 | 5 |
| GNLU Gandhinagar | 339.1 | 212 | 7 | 6 |
| MNLU Mumbai | 418.1 | 156 | 17 | - |
| HNLU Raipur | 453.8 | 355 | 6 | 7 |
| RMLNLU Lucknow | 490.0 | 344 | 8 | 8 |
| RGNUL Patiala | 557.0 | 154 | 9 | 9 |
| Nuals Kochi | 674.5 | 135 | 11 | 10 |
| CNLU Patna | 744.1 | 565 | 10 | 12 |
| NLUO Cuttack | 750.5 | 569 | 12 | 11 |
| NUSRL Ranchi | 936.3 | 663 | 13 | 13 |
| DSNLU Visakhapatnam | 996.3 | 668 | 15 | - |
| TNNLS Tiruchirappalli | 1021.5 | 415 | 16 | - |
| NLUJA Assam Guwahati | 1025.0 | 496 | 14 | 14 |
Photo by arquera
Comments
Bottomline: the old NLUs need to stop being complacent. Students need to pressure VCs to improve infrastructure, attract better faculty and tie up with law firms and industry.
Symbi could be preferred over new NLUs but not over the first 10 in the above list.
Amity should be chosen only after exploring all NLU options.
1. NLSIU
2. NALSAR
3. NUJS/NLUD
5. NLIU/NLUJ
6. GNLU
7. JGLS
8. Symbi
9. ILS
10. NLU Mumbai
11. NLU Lucknow/Patiala
12. NLU Raipur
13. Amity
14. NLU Odisha
15. NLU Kochi
16. DSNLU
17. GLC
18. ULC Bangalore
19. Tamil Nadu NLS
20. CNLU Patna
21. NLU Ranchi
22. SOEL
23. Christ College
24. NLU Assam
25 Shastra
With regard to your other observations, I will also beg to differ on ranking RMLNLU over NLUO and HNLU. I believe RGNUL, NLUO and HNLU are now standing head to head. All the three NLUs are performing exceptionally well in the mooting arena, specially NLUO which has been spectacular this season. The placements of these three have been considerably good. Though, one may not find much of campus placement in all the three colleges but the growing alumni base and the talent of the students has resulted into recruitments, including in Big Six. Perhaps they should be given preference over Symbiosis, Pune because of the 'NLU' tag. That means, 8th position would be switched by RGNUL/NLUO/HNLU and Symbi will come down to 9th followed by RMLNLU.
Further, ranking Amity above NUALS Kochi and GLC is again incorrect in my opinion. Amity do have excellent placement, again due to the locational advantage and the constant running internships pursued by the students. The administrations involvement in it is second to zero. On the other hand, NUALS Kochi is a bright spot and is doing considerably well. It has the potential to do even better however it has not yet made the most of it. Rest I agree with you.
Menon, M.P Singh from the days gone by. Though Mitra would tell you, every time you net him, he was the best ever. Then there have been some who were good for a particular institution for a short period of time.
MNLU has done well this time because of the big city pull, sheer lack of candidate's knowledge about is situation etc. However, as previous years' ranking is seen as the guiding whole, it might continue to hold its position in the years come.
Panda is good guy, but an absolute zero as an administrator. Only Lakshminath might be worse when compared to Panda as an administrator now that Gurbir isn't in office.
At my coaching centre a teacher told me Legally India has ranked NLSIU as no 1 and NLUD as number 2. I cannot figure out whether he means placement-wise or whether it is a rank by a poster.
Please end this confusion by summarising in a single post the pros and cons of each college and confirming the ranks according to placement, CLAT preference, faculty etc.
And please tell us whether the rankings by posters are endorsed by you. If not, then ban them. Everyday someone is posting a different rank on your forum. This is a very anxious time for us and our parents and we need to make a decision that will impact our lives.
Personally, I would probably always choose location of a college (as in, the city I'd want to live in), over many other factors. As such, I might have a strong bias for DU and GLC, even though teaching is middling to non-existent there, but college is about more than just academic study I think. NLSIU Bangalore is obviously great if you get it, as are Nalsar and NUJS (though Nalsar location is a bit rubbish I hear). Bhopal seems like a nice town too, so NLIU might not be too bad a place to be, and it's got fairly small batches and is quite friendly. Jodhpur I don't know so much about since it's fairly admin dominated, but again, great city. GNLU I definitely wouldn't put at the top of the list after hearing the students' tales of dictatorial administration. HNLU is interesting - I don't know so much about it, but the alums from there are quite close knit and enjoyed their time I think.
A lot of the younger ones are in so much flux that it's hard to tell what's going on from one year to the next, and that's a risk: you might join, the VC leaves, and you're stuck in the middle of nowhere without any options.
NLU Delhi is also a solid bet, and Jindal, if I could afford it, would be good because it's near Delhi and has great faculty, but I'm personally quite worried about the mushrooming batch sizes there.
Symbi, Amity Delhi, ILS Pune, etc I don't have much opinion on, because we simply haven't covered them very much. Most alums are mildly scathing about the place, yet I don't think the places have hurt them very much (i.e., there's lots of grads from these places who are partners in law firms etc, so going there doesn't count against you).
Anyway, like I said, it's all about your individual circumstances. There is no one ranking for everyone, and my ranking should be very different from one that might work for you.
Hope that helps some.
About Jindal, some clarity on scholarships would be helpful for us. Also, they have good professors, but if the batch size increases will everyone be taught by them? Also, I am not getting a clear picture about the classroom size. Some inside information would be good.
While there are a lot of problems here at JGLS, faculty to a large extent is not. You are correct that there is mushrooming of incoming batches which to an extent is also taking a toll on the uni's infrastructure, but they have so far made sure that faculty is hired in proportion well in advance. So there is that.
Also, if you see JGLS' faculty, they have very few people in commercially relevant subjects. 60-70% of their faculty specialises in human rights and international law, and their electives are also human rights-centric. This is perhaps their VC Kumar is a human rights person.
I think you should do a faculty comparison and include Symbi. If VC's are not co-operating speak to the student body heads of each college. Surely they would be eay to interview?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/HC-rap-for-DU-on-law-school/articleshow/52511426.cms
NLSIU
NALSAR
NUJS
Symbiosis
NLUJ
Rest
1.JGLS
2.SLS-Pune
3.Amity-ip
4.Lower NLU's(bottom 9-10)
Period.