Following the publication of India Today’s theoretically irrelevant law school rankings last month, Outlook India’s 2016 top 20 law school rankings have been released but do not included NUJS Kolkata, NLIU Bhopal or NLU Jodhpur.
The rankings have placed NLSIU Bangalore, Nalsar Hyderabad and GNLU Gandhinagar in first second and third place, followed by ILS Pune, BVDU Pune, Jamia Milia university in Delhi, HNLU Raipur, Varanasi University’s faculty of law and several others.
Anyway, as we have made clear before , magazine rankings should be taken with such a large pinch of salt that they should come with a health warning attached.
But since there is none, and since many parents apparently take Outlook and India Today very seriously (despite such rankings generally being commercial vehicles for advertising) consider yourself warned by us covering this: if you are making a decision about which college to join on the basis of these rankings, you might as well flip a coin.
And to be a little bit fair, it’s not entirely their fault: NUJS, NLIU and NLU Jodhpur have been boycotting the magazine rankings for a while now (mostly as a mark of protest at the random ranks doled out every year).
Also, on that note - what has the government been doing since the HRD ministry announced it would create its own ranking law schools last year?
Also read: Want to know how magazines’ law school rankings work?
Comments
How the selection criteria for ILS beats NALSAR I don't know
So yes, I think it's fair to say that on some issues we dare to be snarky more often these days.
No harm or offence intended though.
Gradually I learned :)
That choice is mostly intentional: we've come to realise that snark can be good and useful in journalism too, particularly when dealing with stories that are so ridiculous they should not even qualify as journalism.
Us even covering India Today and Outlook rankings is a tragic and shameful thing, and the only way I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning is if I do it with at least some snark.
Also, regularly covering absurdities such as some of the things the BCI or law schools do without resorting to snark, would literally probably cause us and readers to fall into a deep depression about the state of the world pretty quickly.
Hence, snark. It should be pretty obvious where and how we use it and will not affect our independence or objectivity with regard to facts.
If you disagree, please do share your thoughts, always interested to hear feedback about our stylistic choices.
Sorry, I couldn't resist some snark in response to that highly amusing comment. :)
So the top 3 in this ranking is not at all unreasonable.
Haven't looked closely at the numbers, but one thing I noticed is how does GNLU have a placement score of 140 when NLSIU has 147 (and Nalsar 149), and GLC Mumbai for instance only has 126, ILS 133, etc etc...
As far as I understand it, because GNLU has such large batch sizes, it only managed to place 50, or at most half of a batch. GLC does better than that or the same as, no?
Or does 'placement score' (whatever that is), only take into account the 'top' 20 jobs or so?
Agree though, that if you take top few placements then GNLU might reasonably be third in this list.
Are more than 50% of each batch not unplaced? (If I'm wrong on that guesstimate, since GNLU provides no figures, please correct me)
We report the stories that we find and come across. Right now, GNLU is the flavour of the last month or two. Maybe next month there won't be any more GNLU stories and another college will be (just as Nalsar was during Nalsargate episode, or NUJS was when lots of professors left, or NLS was when it fired one of their profs for speaking up against the admin, etc etc).
We don't make up the news, we just report it.
And as an alumni or prospective student, I thought you'd appreciate that.
My view is: you, as an individual, are more than any one college or label, and if you really care about your college and it's future, then you should welcome that at least one media is focusing on the things going on at the college.
Trust me, no one will care what college you're from and what Legally India said about it next week or a year from now, and our coverage does not do any harm to any student, present, past or future.
Please explain, what is your fear exactly? And how do you think our coverage disadvantages anyone?
Facts -
1. Magazine which brings out rankings that Kian does not agree with.
2. Rankings do not have NUJS in them.
3. Kian writes snarky article and then comments "[i]Does anyone have a print copy of the magazine by the way? Would love to know who advertised this year... :)[/i]"
4. Fact unknown to most - [b]NUJS is a Legally India advertiser[/b]
Kian implies that the Outlook rankings are influenced by lawschool advertising. Would he be okay if we claimed that his criticism is also because he wants to bring out coverage favourable to his advertiser i.e. NUJS?
I think he wont like it nor would it be accurate. He is just reporting what he thinks about the rankings.
Same is the case with Outlook rankings. Outlook asked a bunch of questions to a bunch of colleges and published the rankings based on how these institutions replied.It is ok for Outlook to omit the ones who did not respond back to their questionnaire.
Also, Outlook's premise is faulty. You do not publish a ranking based on how the institutions rate themselves, without checking the facts for yourself. The results speak for themselves in their absurdity.
But more than arguing about the origin of the ad, your point therefore reminds me a little bit of emails a certain chairman of a certain bar council has been sending us recently... :)
Seriously though, in any case, we've been happily bashing Outlook and India for years (and also reported favourably on NUJS' decision to boycott the rankings, which clearly many other colleges have now joined).
http://www.legallyindia.com/201008201213/Law-schools/nujs-ers-threaten-outlook-a-india-today-law-school-rankings-with-press-council-complaint
Re Outlook and advertising, there were allegations of a correlation between buying ads and rankings, and judging by how some colleges are ranked, I would not be so surprised if that appearance of a correlation still exists this year...
As far as I know, iPleaders runs and markets the day-to-day course on a profit share model or so.
Again though, even if it was an NUJS ad, it shouldn't matter. Our advertisers are not a secret and we'd run negative stories about colleges that advertise too.
Us not mentioning the absence of NUJS in these rankings (and NLIU and NLU J for that matter), would have made a mockery of the obvious facts.
I have a feeling you're trolling slightly though, so maybe I shouldn't have risen to the bait...