Loyola - looking beyond the rankings

Lack of liberal atmosphere and high handedness of the management is the biggest flaw. Active support for the well being of the underprivileged and placements are the main positives.There is no real student participation in the management of the affairs of the college. The students' union in a teethless tiger.

The course curriculum is not at all a challenging one. The typical Indian education system is on display in loyola with regard to this matter. Rote-memorisation would suffice to pass written examinations as well as the practicals. Texts written by Indian authors are prescribed. Even these books do not require comprehensive reading and only the important sections need be studied. Certaintive aspects are indeed part of the curriculum. These include the 120 hours of 'outreach' (where one has to work in an assigned slum area for the development of the local people) during the 2nd year of the UG course and a month long internship during at a research institute or industrial facility. However improper implementation has meant that these ideas do not grant the intended outcomes or benefits for the students. Compulsory extra curricular activity with any of the recognised clubs is also required during the prescribed semesters.

No, the college does not provide any internship. However as part of the UG programme, every student is required to undergo a one month long internship at a research facility or industrial facility that is connected with his/her UG major.

The college has an excellent placement cell. The staff and head of the placement cell are really amiable and can approached without any inhibition regarding any issue about placements. Adequate orientation is given regarding the placements and all information is updated on the college website as well as the notice boards. The average UG student can easily land a placement with an annual remuneration of 2 - 2.5 lakh. For those who are above average in their social and communicative skills a placement of around 3 lakh is hopeful. Students pursuing BCom and BA in Economics have more opportunities and they can easily get packages that offer 4-5 lakh per annum. IT majors such as wipro, amazon,TCS etc visit the campus every year for recruitment. Many investment banking majors such as Goldmann Sachhs, D E Shaw, E & Y etc also come looking for graduates. However landing a placement would depend upon your personal skills.

Ovations It is the intra-college culturals. Ovations are celebrated on a really huge budget with great pomp and festivity. Tamil actors and celebrities appear as guests. The ovations are held every year around the month of September. It is a visual extravaganza. Pongal Pongal is celebrated with great fervour. The students dress up in traditional attire. Pongal is prepared and folk performances are held. Christmas Christmas is celebrated every year with a gathering, a short message and carols. Department festivals. Every department hosts their own inter-college cultural event. Most of the participants are from the different colleges in Chennai. But these events do see participants from other cities as well. Sports Day Sports Day is held annually.

Extremely feasible. The semester fee for aided courses ranges from Rs 6,000 to Rs 12,000. For self-financed courses it may vary from 12,000 - 24,000. Exam fee comes upto around Rs 800 per semester. The college is primarily a welfare- oriented institution.

The college offers a large number of scholarships to the economically or socially underprivileged students. This and many other scholarships are distributed through the Loyola Social Services division (LSSS) that functions on campus. A lot of students get full or partial semester fee and hostel fee waiver. Your economic status will in no manner affect your study at loyola. The college strives for the upliftment of the underprivileged.

Labs are pretty ok. There is nothing extraordinary about them. Excellent infrastructure is present for sports. Financial allocation is also provided in the necessary amount. The college hosts various talks, seminars and competitions.

The hostel infrastructure is really good. Most rooms are shared by two wards. But in some rooms there can be 3 or 4 students. There is adequate facility for exercise and recreation. But gaining admission into the hostel becomes a tedious process if you are not a resident of Tamil Nadu. The hostel mess offers good quality food. The students can pick from 3 different messes - veg, non veg and north indian

The alumni network is a work in progress. Seniors might not be helpful at times. A lot of the fresh graduates might not be willing to disclose the pitfalls or flaws of the institution. In the recent years the has been a push to improve the alumni network.

Each semester you have to attend 3 internals. The highest two scores from among the 3 will be selected for each subject. This will account for 80% of your internal assessment. The remaining 20% of the assessment shall depend upon the discretion of your faculty in charge of the paper. The end semester exam is for 100 marks. Some papers do not have an end semester exam. The internal assessment and the end semester exam each carry 50% weightage whie calculating your GPA.

Loyola College is located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Once the 12th board results were published they invited applications to their aided and self-financed courses. Back when I applied the process was offline. I had purchased the application form and submitted it after filling it up and attaching supporting documents. The very next year the entire application process was made online.

Most of the faculty hold PhDs. But barring a very few teachers the rest are not upto the mark. Teaching methods are outdated. Regarding interaction with students I would say that in general the faculty are neither too friendly nor too reserved. Most of the faculty members are approachable. But the faculty is the king and do not mistake for one second that you can interact with them in a casual manner. There are exceptions of course