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Reading college placement data honestly

Indian college placement marketing is famously misleading. "₹2 Cr highest CTC!", "100% placement!", "Top recruiters Google + MS!". These are technically true and decision-useless. Here's how to read them.

Honest median packages — top tiers

Median = middle 50%. Not "highest", not "average" (which is skewed by outliers). Sources: published placement reports cross-checked with student forums (Pagalguy, Quora, anonymous IIM placement spreadsheets).

• Top IITs (Bombay/Delhi/Madras/Kharagpur/Kanpur) — CSE₹22 - ₹28 LPA

  Median, not headline. Top decile ₹50 LPA+ but heavily concentrated in CS/Math + foreign placements.

• Top IITs — other branches (Mech, Civil, Chem, Met)₹12 - ₹18 LPA

  Substantial gap from CSE within same college. Most non-CSE IITians don't do core engineering jobs anymore.

• Old NITs (Trichy, Surathkal, Warangal, Rourkela) — CSE₹14 - ₹20 LPA

  Slightly below top IIT CSE. Same product/service split logic.

• Old NITs — other branches₹7 - ₹12 LPA

  Solid but well below CSE.

• Tier-2 Engg (mid NITs, IIIT-A, IIITH, BITS, COEP, JU, etc.)₹6 - ₹12 LPA

  Strong dev-job pipelines at Indian product companies + service majors.

• IIM-A/B/C/L (MBA)₹32 - ₹38 LPA

  Median. ROI on IIM tuition (~₹25-30L over 2 years) genuinely strong here.

• Other IIMs (Tier-1 newer) — MBA₹22 - ₹28 LPA

  Below ABCs but still strong placement infrastructure.

• NLSIU/NLU-D/NALSAR (Law)₹15 - ₹20 LPA at top corporate firms; litigation track separate

  Top-tier corporate law firms. Litigation starts lower; senior counsel earnings substantial.

• AIIMS / top govt MBBSGovt MBBS doctor ₹6-8 LPA fresh + ₹15-25 LPA post-MD

  Placement % isn't a meaningful metric for MBBS. MD/MS specialisation drives outcomes.

6 misleading patterns to ignore

• "Highest CTC ₹2 crore!"

  Reality: Single foreign-payroll offer at a tier-1 firm to a top-1% student. Not representative of the cohort. The 99th percentile says nothing about the 50th percentile.

• "100% placement record"

  Reality: Excludes students who 'opted out' (didn't sit for placements). Often includes ₹2-3 LPA mass-recruiter offers students took because they had no other option. Always check median.

• "Average package ₹15 LPA"

  Reality: Average is skewed by 1-2 outliers. Median is the honest number. Always ask for median — it usually halves the average.

• "Top recruiters: Google, Microsoft, Amazon"

  Reality: Means 1-3 students out of 200 got those offers. Look at total placements by company, not just logos at the top.

• "Average CTC ₹X LPA (with foreign offers in INR)"

  Reality: A ₹2.5 Cr foreign-payroll offer ($300k+) pulls the average up massively. Either exclude foreign or report median.

• "100% placement at Tier-3 BTech college"

  Reality: Usually means service-company offers at ₹3-4 LPA. Verify median, branch-wise breakup, and dropouts/opt-outs.

Questions to actually ask

1. What's the median CTC? Not average. Not highest. Median.
2. What's the median for MY branch? CSE median ≠ Mechanical median.
3. How many got offers from top product / consulting / IB / govt? Not just "logos visited" — actual offer count.
4. What % of students sat for placements? If 30% opted out, "100% placed of 70%" is the real number — not 100%.
5. What's the bottom decile CTC? If lowest-decile gets ₹3 LPA service offers, that's the floor.
6. Is the foreign offer ₹2 Cr included in the average? Should be excluded for honest comparison.
7. Where do alumni 5 years out work? The most-honest signal. LinkedIn search for "[college] [batch year]".
8. What's the salary 5 years out — not just at graduation? Some tier-3 BTech grads start at ₹3.5L but reach ₹15L in 5 years. Some IIT grads start at ₹30L but plateau if they don't switch firms.