Our prestigious college was recently ranked 12 by the magazine, India Today. Funny thing, only three NLUs actually featured the list, our beloved, NLSIU, NUJS and GNLU. I am baffled, I don’t know if I should be happy. Here I wish to draw an analogy, remember all the times in school, specially in Grade 12, when often the hard working kid yet ‘could not secure a rank in the Top 10’ set out targets for himself, made a schedule and everything and set out to conquer the world, in his case the Board Examinations.
Now he faced two challenges:
1. The Titan sizes Nerds who worked and studied all their life just to top the boards
2. Those Brainy (awful) kids, who never studied at all, they just made the top ranks.
Subsequently, the probability of him making the list decreases, but then, one can only work hard and hope for the best. AIL was that hopeful kid who wished to have its name above the NLUs. With an aggregate score of 38.58, we have managed to secure a Rank 12. However, if these were the Board exams we wouldn’t be all that pleased as we barely passed the 33% mark. Well, now that we are No. 12, it’s time to introspect and see what all colleges we left behind. Surprisingly only 3 Titans made it to the list. This is when these rankings do not inspire any confidence. I mean, I fail to understand how NALSAR, NLIU or NLU-D did not make it in the Top 20. I just recently saw a wave of students crying their eyes out after the AILET 2017. Maybe that’s why they didn’t feature the list. :3
At this point I no longer feel the excitement I did when I read the results. It seemed fishy initially but now I’m pretty sure it is. One thing that really disheartens me is the possibility of students actually being encouraged by these ratings. I feel like it was sadly presumed that higher rankings would help us make a name of ourselves and give another thing to talk about during our moot court competitions and convocations. But people aren’t stupid! Honestly I, for one, would be ashamed if that happened.
To clear it out I’m not implying that we do not deserve a better rank than before. We do, we worked hard and should get a better rank, but this, is more of an insult than a pat on the back. As a student of this college who wishes that we eventually do stand next to the NLUs and grow as a law college, I accept and do it so with utmost sincerity that, right now we aren’t there yet. No doubt that together we are working towards it, each one of us knows that.
Let us not just aim at higher rankings but actually work towards deserving them. Because how do we plan on explaining ourselves when the actual ratings come out? At this juncture, I would retract the, “Board examination” analogy and rather give the example of what happens when an invigilator comes to conduct the Practicals just before the Boards. If anyone reading this has ever given a Chemistry Practical they know what I mean.
Three Cheers to Jalebis and Samosas for helping us secure 26 marks out of the total 30 when most of us still do not know what the word ‘pipette’ even means!
