How should I choose a college?

Choosing a college is all about knowing what you want to study and where you want to study. You must be clear in your mind as to what you will achieve with the degree you get and how it will affect your career, which will determine what your life is going to be. A lot of students choose to study any branch at any IIT because for them it is not the placements that matter, but the brand image of studying at an IIT.

The importance of whether you are studying what you want or where you are studying can vary from student to student. For some, an immediate placement is more important while for others it is about lifelong learning and career outcomes that matter. Besides, cost or of education, that is, tuition and hostel fees, merit/score, distance involved and travelling play a major role in choosing an institution.

Here is how, I would choose my college:

1. First decide the stream that I want to study. An institution may be the best, but the course you may want to study may not be the best that it offers. For example: You will prefer to do an MBA from IIMs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Management) even though IITs also offer an MBA . It is so because management education is the core strength of an IIM whereas it is engineering at IITs though they offer management courses.  Similarly, to study commerce or arts or design, you will always have to prefer institutions with expertise in imparting these courses.

2. Then, select the location. Ideally, you should not be very rigid about the location of choosing a college at the postgraduate level. However, at the undergraduate (UG) level, if you are getting admission in an institution of national repute, you must take it up. Unfortunately, India has very few national level institutions. So, it is better to take admission at the best institution in your chosen stream in the city or state where you live.

3. Is the college approved? This would be the most important factor at the undergraduate level. Your qualification must have approval from the regulatory bodies. The college must be approved by one of the regulatory bodies – UGC (https://www.ugc.ac.in) , AICTE, Bar Council etc. If the college isn’t approved, avoid it.

4.Diversity: Choose a college where students come from all over India (if it is a national-level institute) and from all over state/city (if it is a state-level institute). Look at the gender ratio too. An institution that is sought after by students from across the nation/state would always offer better learning. Diversity can be demographic, economic and even gender-based.

5. Is the college transparent? As education in India is regulated, every regulatory body has mandated that information that is needed to help the student take an informed decision is put up on the website of the college. So, look at all disclosures made on the college website. You can search for ‘College Name + Mandatory Disclosure’. If such disclosures are not on the college website, avoid such colleges. A college which isn’t transparent about itself and its functioning doesn’t deserve your attention.

6. Ranking/Rating: If you are looking for better colleges, look for a college that is convincing about its quality and has willingly got itself scrutinized/assessed in the following manner:

a.     that are ranked by either NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework under MHRD). As of date, NIRF ranks all colleges that apply to it for getting ranked with a separate ranking for universities, engineering colleges, medical, law etc.

b.     Rated by NAAC (http://www.naac.gov.in) (National Assessment and Accreditation Council, an autonomous body under the UGC). As of date, 302 universities, affiliated colleges and 129 autonomous colleges have been rated by NAAC. By 2021, it is mandatory that all colleges get themselves accredited. The NAAC rating is on a score of 4 with the highest rating being A++ (to institutions getting 3.56 and above)

c.     If you still need more information and data, look for the ranking/rating of Careers360. This is because we don’t look at perception and rank/rate colleges based only on objective data and information.

7. Placement: This is a tricky one. Most institutes lie on this. Selective information about placements, brandishing big names like placements in Google, Amazon etc. are played up to influence young minds. The best place to check this info is the placement data submitted to AICTE. You can also check this data on the Careers360 website where placement data for each college, course-wise is displayed on the college page.

8. Faculty to Student Ratio: This is important for your learning outcome. A college which doesn’t have good faculty will fall apart sooner than later. Well qualified (PhD) faculty is a must. The ideal faculty student ratio should never be more than 1:20

9. Labs, Library, Live Projects, and Internships: A good college invests a lot more in good lab facilities, a well-equipped library with digital subscription to the best journals etc. Besides, the number of live projects, the companies that seek interns would be a good indicator too.

10.  Alumni Network: This would be very beneficial in the long run. An older institution has more alumni working in different companies at senior positions. The IIM and IIT networks are famed for helping each other out and pulling students of their alma mater.

11.  Compare your short listed options: On Careers360, there is a wonderful tool that compares different colleges at course level.

https://www.careers360.com/compare-colleges

Compare all the data at a micro level. What is important to you may not be so for others.

12.  Use Careers360’s college predictor tool: If you want to study either engineering or medicine, use the college predictor tool of Careers360. It has a list of all colleges that offer these courses and can be filtered down to a geographical location, your score, fees etc.