NIRF Ranking 2025: Why IIT Madras has dominated engineering for nine years

The perception game of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras seems strong as it continues to dominate the engineering ranking in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for years with a perfect score. The education ministry will announce the 10th edition of the NIRF 2025 rankings today, September 4, placing higher education institutions in 16 different categories. NIRF ranking 2025 live updates.

While the NIRF engineering ranking 2025 is yet to be announced, we know that the institute has been ranking first in the category for nine years in a row. A quick look at the performance of the IIT shows a perfect 100 score in the perception parameter for at least five years down the lane.

But what does perception mean and how does a perfect score help the institution? Well, as per NIRF, the peer perception basically implies how the employers and academics find the graduates produced by the institute. Full score signals to the reputation, trust, and respect IITM has built for itself in the eyes of the recruiters, peers, and aspiring students.

Not just that, the institute also excels in other metrics such as teaching and resources with its highest score of 95.79 out of 100, recorded last year. Scoring close to perfection in this parameter which evaluates infrastructure, faculty-student ratio, and academic resources highlights the world-class laboratories, strong student and faculty strength, and refined curriculum, offering a perfect learning environment for learners.

Also read NIRF 2025: How India’s colleges are scored and ranked

The next best quality of the southern IIT is its research and professional practices. Its collaborations for patents, publications, and funded projects are the proofs. In recent times, IIT Madras has partnered with Accenture, Tamil Nadu government, and United States (US) researchers for different initiatives. It filed 417 patents in the 2024-25 financial year.

IIT Madras has been doing good in placements, average number of PhD degrees, median salary achieved by placed students, and students’ performance in exams. Over 500 PhD scholars graduated in the last convocation. The median salary of BTech students was recorded at Rs 19 .6 lakh in the last IIT Madras placements. However, IIT Delhi, the second top engineering institute in India had a better score in this parameter last year.

A major scope of improvement lies in outreach and inclusivity as the institute scored poorly, implying that despite the academic excellence, it is not equally accessible to all the sections of the society.

NIRF Ranking 2025: Top 10 engineering colleges and their scores

The top 10 engineering institutes in India according to NIRF rankings over the last three years, along with their respective scores are as follows:

NIRF 2025 Rankings: Parameters

The institutions will be ranked on the basis of parameters established by the core committee. The parameters have been divided into different sub-parameters and are assigned weightage.

The parameters have been divided into the following metrics:

Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR): Institutes are evaluated on student strength, faculty-student ratio, faculty with PhD and experience, financial resources.

Research and Professional Practice (RP): Publications, quality of publications, IPR and patents, projects matter in this parameter.

Graduation Outcomes (GO): Colleges are examined on student performance in university examinations, number of PhD Students graduated, placements, median salary.

Outreach and Inclusivity (OI): Percentage of students from other states or countries, percentage of women, economically and socially-challenged students, facilities for physically-challenged students are taken into consideration.

Perception (PR) Ranking: Colleges will be ranked in peer perception and employers.