Median vs Highest Package: How to Read a Placement Report
The highest package is one offer. The median is the middle one. Across 96 ranked engineering institutes, placement rate correlates with median salary at only 0.37, so the number colleges advertise is close to useless for predicting what you will be paid. NIRF’s Graduation Outcomes score correlates at 0.82.
Every placement report leads with two numbers: a placement percentage and a highest package. Neither is the number you need. The one that matters is collected by the government, published for every ranked institute, and almost never quoted in a brochure.
The table that settles it
Here is every ranked institute that placed between 88% and 93% of its graduating cohort. On the advertised metric they are indistinguishable. On pay they are not.
| Institute | Placement rate | Median salary | NIRF rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kalasalingam Academy | 92.1% | Rs 610,000 | 33 |
| SRM Institute of Science and Technology | 92.5% | Rs 620,000 | 14 |
| C.V. Raman Global University, Odisha | 91.7% | Rs 645,000 | 95 |
| UPES | 91.0% | Rs 650,000 | 43 |
| SASTRA | 88.9% | Rs 760,000 | 40 |
| Symbiosis International | 89.8% | Rs 950,000 | 46 |
| Jadavpur University | 91.0% | Rs 1,050,000 | 18 |
| MANIT Bhopal | 89.6% | Rs 1,100,000 | 81 |
| MNNIT Allahabad | 92.2% | Rs 1,200,000 | 62 |
| NIT Calicut | 88.6% | Rs 1,250,000 | 21 |
| BITS Pilani | 89.1% | Rs 1,800,000 | 11 |
| IIT (BHU) Varanasi | 92.8% | Rs 2,000,000 | 10 |
Kalasalingam Academy and IIT (BHU) Varanasi both place around nine graduates in ten. One reports a median of Rs 610,000, the other Rs 2,000,000 — a factor of 3.3. A billboard saying “90% placed” is equally true of both.
NIRF asks for the median. Colleges quote the highest.
This is not an accident of reporting. NIRF’s engineering framework awards 25 marks inside Graduation Outcomes for median salary specifically, and its per-institute data sheet has a column headed “Median salary of placed graduates per annum”. Nowhere does it ask for a highest package.
So the government collects the statistically meaningful number, publishes it for every ranked institute, and colleges advertise a different one. The median is public. It is just not marketed.
Where the sub-metric weights come from and what else sits inside the score is covered in how NIRF scores are calculated.
What the medians actually look like
| Position | Median salary | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | Rs 3,200,000 | One institute. Not typical of anything. |
| Upper quartile | Rs 1,400,000 | Top quarter of ranked institutes |
| Middle | Rs 1,002,500 | The typical ranked engineering institute |
| Lower quartile | Rs 751,500 | Bottom quarter of ranked institutes |
| Lowest | Rs 336,000 | Also inside the NIRF top 100 |
The full range runs from Rs 336,000 to Rs 3,200,000, and both ends are inside the NIRF top 100. Rank alone will not tell you where an institute sits on that scale: IIIT Hyderabad posts the highest median in the entire ranked list from rank 38.
The tier gap is real though. Median salary inside the top 25 is Rs 1,525,000, against Rs 900,000 across ranks 26 to 100.
Check the cohort size before you trust a median
NIRF publishes the number graduating alongside the salary, and it changes how much weight a figure deserves. Cohorts in this data run from 73 graduates to 5,964.
The two highest medians in the whole ranked list come from small cohorts: IIIT Hyderabad reports Rs 3,200,000 across 188 graduates, and ABV-IIITM Gwalior Rs 2,200,000 across 73. A median over 73 people is a far noisier statistic than a median over several thousand, and one strong recruiting year moves it a long way.
The pattern holds in aggregate: institutes with fewer than 200 graduates report a median of Rs 1,184,750, against Rs 791,000 for those with 1,000 or more. Some of that is genuine selectivity. Some of it is small numbers.
| Institute | Graduating cohort | Placement rate | Median salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vellore Institute of Technology | 5,964 | 67.6% | Rs 899,000 |
| SRM Institute of Science and Technology | 4,552 | 92.5% | Rs 620,000 |
| Lovely Professional University | 3,891 | 70.8% | Rs 800,000 |
| Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology | 3,547 | 34.8% | Rs 740,000 |
| Chandigarh University | 2,933 | 37.1% | Rs 800,000 |
| Sathyabama Institute of Science and Techno | 2,801 | 53.6% | Rs 600,000 |
The large-cohort end is where the volume of Indian engineering actually sits, and it is a different market. Note the placement rates as well as the medians: two of these institutes graduate more than 2,900 students a year and place under 40% of them.
Which visible number actually predicts pay
| Signal | Correlation with median salary | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| NIRF Graduation Outcomes score | 0.82 | Strong. The best public predictor. |
| NIRF overall rank | 0.50 | Moderate. Weaker than the GO column alone. |
| Placement rate | 0.37 | Weak. The number most often advertised. |
Read that top to bottom. The Graduation Outcomes score is a strong predictor of median salary at 0.82. The placement rate is a weak one at 0.37. The overall NIRF rank sits between them at 0.50, which is another reason to read the parameter columns rather than the rank.
When a low placement rate is not a problem
The reverse error is just as common. A modest placement rate often means students opted out of placement entirely, usually for a master’s or a competitive exam.
| Institute | Placement rate | Went to higher study | Median salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Techno | 52.2% | 47.8% | Rs 900,000 |
| Aligarh Muslim University | 55.7% | 44.3% | Rs 600,000 |
| Vignan University | 43.4% | 38.0% | Rs 336,000 |
| Pandit Deendayal Energy University | 55.6% | 37.6% | Rs 642,000 |
| IIT Tirupati | 55.6% | 35.1% | Rs 1,100,000 |
| NIT Srinagar | 57.9% | 34.2% | Rs 1,100,000 |
These cohorts are not unemployed. They are in graduate school. Placement rate and higher-study share are two halves of the same denominator, and reading one without the other produces exactly the wrong conclusion.
Reading CTC, which is its own trick
- CTC is not take-home. It bundles base pay, variable and performance pay, stock, a joining bonus and employer contributions. The monthly figure that reaches your account is materially lower.
- Stock is quoted at grant value. For an unlisted company that number is a valuation, not cash.
- International offers are converted at spot rates and rarely adjusted for cost of living, which is how one offer lifts a headline.
- Joining bonuses are one-off but appear in a per-annum figure.
Five questions to ask any college
- What was the median salary last year? Not the average, not the highest. If they will not say, the NIRF data sheet will.
- Placed out of how many? A percentage without its denominator is unusable. Ask for graduating cohort, not “eligible and registered”.
- How many went to higher study? This reframes the placement rate entirely.
- What is the median for my branch? Institute-wide medians hide a wide branch spread.
- How many of those offers were accepted? Offers made and offers taken are different counts.
Jobs and study abroad
- For choosing between Indian colleges, the median-versus-rate comparison by ownership is in private vs government placements, and the institute-level figures sit in the NIRF engineering table.
- For branch choice, which moves pay more than institute does, see the branch-wise breakdown.
- For comparing against studying abroad, a real median is the input the whole calculation depends on: study abroad vs India on ROI.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between median and highest package?
The median is the middle offer: half the placed students earned less. The highest package is a single offer, often an international one converted at a spot exchange rate. One describes a typical graduate, the other describes one person.
Does NIRF publish median or highest package?
Median. NIRF's framework scores institutes on median salary and its per-institute data sheets publish that figure alongside the number graduating and the number placed. It never asks for a highest package, which is why colleges quote that number in their own material instead.
Is a 95% placement rate a good sign?
On its own, no. Across the 12 ranked institutes placing between 88% and 93% of their cohort, median salaries run from Rs 610,000 to Rs 2,000,000, a spread of 3.3 times at effectively the same placement rate.
What is a good median package for an engineering college?
Across the ranked institutes the middle sits at about Rs 1,002,500. The top quarter is above Rs 1,400,000 and the bottom quarter below Rs 751,500. Inside the NIRF top 25 the median is Rs 1,525,000, against Rs 900,000 for ranks 26 to 100.
Why do some good colleges have a low placement rate?
Often because their students chose not to be placed. IIT Tirupati placed 55.6% but sent 35.1% of the cohort to higher study. Read the placement rate and the higher-study share together before treating a low number as a warning.
Sources and method
Median salaries, students graduating, students placed and students going to higher study come from the per-institute data sheets NIRF publishes for every ranked institute, for example IIT Madras (IR-E-U-0456), downloaded 26 August 2026. We read the four-year UG block and took the most recent graduating year, 2023-24. Of the 100 ranked institutes 96 parsed successfully; the rest publish no four-year UG block or use a layout our parser could not read, and are excluded rather than estimated. Correlations are Spearman rank correlations computed by us. The figures are submitted by institutes to the Ministry of Education, so treat them as claims — but claims made to the government rather than in a brochure. Jobs to Education is not affiliated with NIRF or the Ministry of Education; see our terms.