Three ways to count the ranked sector, and what each is for
The board in README.md reads one ranking edition at one academic year. That is the
strictly comparable view, and it is not the only one worth having. This note sets out the three,
what each includes, and the one finding that only appears when you compare them.
Source for the second and third: extract_latest_per_college.sql,
which takes each institute’s most recent observation carrying outcomes — latest ranking year,
then latest academic year within it.
The three views
Section titled “The three views”| Population | Measured at | Use it for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. One edition | institutes in NIRF 2025 | one academic year, same for all | comparing disciplines against each other |
| B. Currently ranked, last report | institutes in NIRF 2025 | each at its own last report | the ranked sector today, best coverage |
| C. Ever ranked, last report | every institute NIRF has ranked | each at its own last report | the largest picture the data supports |
B gains almost nothing over A. Across fifteen tracks it adds two institutes to Medical UG, one each to Dental and Law UG, and loses one each on Agriculture UG and Pharmacy PG — those two sit in the 2025 metrics table but not in the 2025 rankings table for their category, a small join mismatch worth knowing about. Rates move by under two points everywhere. NIRF’s 2025 edition is already near-complete, so “use each college’s latest data” buys very little within an edition.
C is where the information is.
C: every college NIRF has ever ranked, at its last report
Section titled “C: every college NIRF has ever ranked, at its last report”| Discipline | Level | Currently ranked | Ever ranked | × | Graduates | Placed % | Higher study % | Oldest vintage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | UG | 97 | 263 | 2.7× | 222,407 | 70.95% | 12.30% | 2015-16 |
| Dental | UG | 38 | 62 | 1.6× | 4,527 | 55.31% | 29.56% | 2018-19 |
| Pharmacy | UG | 87 | 128 | 1.5× | 10,139 | 41.71% | 40.64% | 2017-18 |
| Agriculture | UG | 37 | 47 | 1.3× | 18,082 | 34.94% | 48.74% | 2021-22 |
| Medical | UG | 47 | 61 | 1.3× | 9,357 | 58.87% | 35.66% | 2017-18 |
| Law | UG | 38 | 47 | 1.2× | 6,902 | 63.68% | 15.42% | 2020-21 |
| Architecture | UG | 40 | 45 | 1.1× | 2,743 | 67.99% | 15.17% | 2017-18 |
| All PG tracks | PG | — | unchanged | 1.0× | 2022-24 |
Engineering UG more than doubles: 97 colleges to 263, and 105,542 graduates to 222,407. Most of that is the 101–200 band NIRF published through 2022 and not after.
Every PG track is unchanged at 1.0×, because PG ranking tracks are recent — nobody has dropped out of them yet.
The finding: the current ranked set is positively selected
Section titled “The finding: the current ranked set is positively selected”Compare each discipline’s placement rate under B and C — the same measure over the current set versus everyone ever ranked:
| Discipline | Currently ranked | Ever ranked | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental UG | 60.67% | 55.31% | −5.36 |
| Law UG | 68.50% | 63.68% | −4.82 |
| Medical UG | 61.23% | 58.87% | −2.36 |
| Pharmacy UG | 43.97% | 41.71% | −2.26 |
| Agriculture UG | 36.03% | 34.94% | −1.09 |
| Architecture UG | 68.00% | 67.99% | −0.01 |
| Engineering UG | 70.62% | 70.95% | +0.33 |
Colleges that fell out of the ranking placed worse than the ones that stayed. That is what you would expect — graduate outcomes feed the NIRF score, so weak placement pushes a college down and eventually out — but it means quoting the current ranked set overstates the ranked sector by two to five points in most disciplines.
Engineering is the exception, and instructive. Its 166 departed colleges place at essentially the same rate as the 97 that remain. They did not leave because their outcomes deteriorated; they left because NIRF stopped publishing ranks 101–200 for that track after 2022. A change in the ranking, not in the colleges — which is the cleanest evidence yet that the 2023 discontinuity is about publication depth rather than performance, whether it originated at NIRF or in our load.
What C costs
Section titled “What C costs”Mixed vintage. Engineering UG under C reaches back to 2015-16. A composite rate over colleges
measured up to nine years apart is not a snapshot of anything, and should never be quoted as “the
2025 figure”. The extract carries oldest_vintage, newest_vintage and pct_on_newest_vintage
per group so the blend is visible; for currently-ranked tracks, 93.6–100% of institutes sit on the
newest vintage, so B is nearly clean while C is not.
Survivorship runs the other way too. A college’s last report is often the year before it fell out — plausibly its worst. So C is not an unbiased picture of the ever-ranked sector either; it is the best available one, and its bias points down.
Neither view is “the” answer. A is what the board uses because comparing disciplines needs a common moment. C is the right base for any question about how many colleges and graduates the ranking has ever covered.