How do new and baby IIMs rank compared to each other in terms of placement and brand value?

The ranking of newer IIMs — those established after 2009 — remains genuinely contested, and in our experience, disagreements around placement quality and brand perception here run deeper than they do for the older cohort. There's no clean consensus, but there is a discernible picture.

IIM Shillong sits a clear tier above the rest of this group. With median placements around 23 LPA, it's strong enough that some experienced professionals we've heard from argue it shouldn't even be grouped with the newer IIMs at all — its performance has simply diverged too far from the pack.

Among the remaining newer IIMs, IIM Trichy and IIM Udaipur are the most closely watched. From what we've tracked, there's a credible case that IIM Trichy has pulled ahead in recent years — supported by audited placement data and a notably sharp NIRF jump from rank 27 to rank 16 in a single year. That kind of movement is hard to dismiss. At the same time, we've seen the counterargument made with equal conviction: IIM Udaipur has historically carried stronger brand value, and brand equity doesn't reprice overnight. The honest answer is that both positions have merit, and the gap between them is narrow enough that individual batch performance can tip the comparison in either direction.

IIM Ranchi holds a somewhat different status — it's widely recognized as carrying legacy weight among this newer generation of IIMs, forming what's informally called the UTR group: Udaipur, Trichy, and Ranchi.

Beyond UTR, the picture that emerges from experienced professionals and alumni perspectives places the subsequent tiers roughly as follows: Raipur, Rohtak, Visakhapatnam, Nagpur, Kashipur, Jammu, Bodhgaya, and Sambalpur. It's worth noting that research on institutions like Sambalpur, Sirmaur, and Amritsar remains thin, and we'd caution against treating any fixed sequence here as authoritative.

One perspective worth taking seriously comes from JBIMS alumni of the 2027 batch. JBIMS offers strong ROI and, notably, access to rare front-office investment banking roles — but it demands 99.99 percentile for entry and lacks a residential campus experience. Crucially, the reported placement figures are widely understood to be inflated, with actual outcomes considered closer to IIM Shillong's level once you look past the headline numbers. This is a pattern, incidentally, that applies more broadly: placement statistics across IIMs — newer and older — frequently mask real outcomes through forced opt-outs and selective reporting. NIRF rankings carry their own distortions too; the fact that IIT Delhi has ranked above IIM Calcutta in certain cycles illustrates how imperfectly these metrics capture ground reality.

The broader takeaway we'd offer: every institution in this group is a legitimate, well-regarded program. But placements and brand perception in this tier are genuinely dynamic — shaped by batch performance, faculty changes, and corporate relationship-building that can shift meaningfully year to year. Fixed hierarchies below the UTR level especially should be held loosely.