Research methodology
THE WEEK has been conducting the Best Colleges Survey in association with Hansa Research since 2009 to rank the top colleges in India. This year, the study was done across ten disciplines—arts, science, commerce, engineering, medicine, dental, law, hotel management, fashion technology and mass communication—and covered 24 cities.
As many as 1,043 academic experts, 2,460 current students, 953 aspiring students and 30 recruiters took part in the primary survey. The sample was selected ensuring proper representation of all cities and disciplines. The respondents were asked to nominate and rank the 25 top colleges in India and top colleges in their city. Of the 4,486 interviews, 119 were qualitative. This helped get an in-depth understanding of the reasons for the rankings.
Perceptual score was calculated based on the number of nominations and the actual ranks received.
For factual data collection, a dedicated website was created and the link was sent to more than 3,300 colleges. Those that did not wish to be ranked were omitted.
Factual score was calculated using the information collected from the colleges. This included age, accreditation and infrastructure, faculty, placements, extracurricular activities, entry standard, teaching-learning process, and (for medicine and dental) hospital association.
Composite score = Perceptual score (out of 600) + factual score (out of 400)
Some colleges could not respond to the survey. For them, composite score was derived by combining the perceptual score with an interpolated factual score based on their position in the perceptual score list.
Colleges for mass communication were ranked using perceptual data only.