Methodology

How we source placement data

Every placement number on PlacementPilot AI is traceable to a primary source. We don't aggregate student surveys, we don't extrapolate from social media, and we don't inflate numbers to rank well in SERPs. This page documents exactly where our data comes from and how often we refresh it.

Primary data sources

1. NIRF Engineering Ranking (Government of India, Ministry of Education)

The National Institutional Ranking Framework publishes annual rankings for Indian engineering institutions. Each ranked institution submits audited placement data including placement percentage, median package, highest package, and top recruiters. We treat NIRF as the canonical source for ranked institutions.

2. AICTE approval data

The All India Council for Technical Education maintains the list of approved technical institutions. We use AICTE approval status as an entity-existence check and to capture institution metadata not covered by NIRF.

  • Source: aicte-india.org
  • Refresh: annual

3. Institutional websites

For institutions that publish their own placement reports (most IITs, NITs, and top private universities do), we cross-reference our NIRF-sourced numbers against the institute's own published report. When numbers differ, we note both and link to both sources.

4. NAAC accreditation

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council grades institutions on a five-point scale. We surface NAAC grades on college pages where the grade is publicly listed.

What we do not do

  • We do not survey students and report self-reported salary data.
  • We do not estimate placement rates by extrapolating from social media.
  • We do not infer recruiter lists from LinkedIn scraping.
  • We do not modify NIRF-published numbers. If NIRF says 88% placement, the page says 88%.

How we handle uncertainty

When a data point is estimated rather than sourced (typically: department-level student counts for institutions that don't publish them), we label the field as estimated in the underlying dataset and avoid surfacing it as a headline number. Median and highest package numbers are neverestimated — if NIRF doesn't publish it, we don't print it.

Refresh cadence

  • NIRF data: refreshed within 30 days of the annual ranking release.
  • Institutional metadata (NAAC, AICTE): refreshed annually.
  • Placement reports linked from college pages: reviewed quarterly.

Corrections

If you spot a number you believe is wrong, please email [email protected]with the page URL and a link to the authoritative source. We typically respond within 48 business hours and ship corrections inside 7 days. Corrections are logged in the page's dateModifiedfield and surfaced in the "Last reviewed" line under the byline.

See also