India's best engineering colleges 2012

For the first time, Careers360 has taken the lead to rank over 1,000 colleges out of a universe of 4,200 plus colleges. Read on to find out the state-wise rating.

With over 13 lakh seats across 4,200+ institutions, technical education in India is witnessing unprecedented growth. But reports speak of thousands of engineering college seats going vacant across the country.

In 2011, there was the unique case of a college not getting a single student during the counselling process! Despite this, in 2012, at least 134 more colleges have been added to the list. After rating just 117 colleges in the first year we have come a long way.

This year we rated over 1000 colleges i.e. just about 24 per cent of the total population. Our data sources are diverse (please read methodology below), our objective still remains steadfast.

We have rated colleges, even using with cut-offs and website based information, so that you at least have a place to begin with when you do your short-listing. We hope this will help you substantially in making an informed choice in the engineering education space. Keep in mind that most rating exercises capture only a fraction of all the useful information that together make a college worthwhile.

Methodology

This year we started by downloading the list of all 4,321 engineering colleges in the country from AICTE's website and set upon the tough task of collecting authentic data on them.

We did have a bank of information from our previous two years of rankings of over 550 colleges. The challenge was to push the envelope to include more colleges. As usual, the college websites were scanned, their mandatory disclosures were downloaded, and data was collected via questionnaires from colleges willing to participate in our national survey.   

All the collected data was cross-checked and verified from multiple sources to ensure their reliability and validity, namely the reports from National Board of Accreditation for accreditation details, Annual Reports of institutions etc.

The data was then processed through our unique and tested Input-Process-Output methodology, adapted for Engineering Colleges. The component parameters were given weights in proportion of 35:25:40. (See table for break-up).

The scores had to be normalised to account for the unevenness in the available data. In addition, the opening and closing ranks of State entrance exams were synthesised in the rating.

Data of all the colleges admitting students through AIEEE was drawn up using the opening and closing ranks of AIEEE counselling and amalgamated into the existing rating.

The result was a unified, composite State-wise rating giving us a single list of IITs, NITs, IIITs, deemed universities, AIEEE colleges and institutes that make admissions based on State entrance tests. We present to you approximately 1000 colleges, nearly twice that of last year. Knowledge, they say, is the key to success; and we hand over that key to you for a bright career in Engineering.