India Today-MDRA fashion design ranking
In the India Today-MDRA ranking table for fashion design colleges, AIFD is listed at overall rank 15 for 2025; the same row shows rank 16 for 2024. This is a position in that publisher’s fashion design ranking, not a NIRF position and not an admissions rank. The 2025 row reports an objective score of 766, a perceptual score of 608.7 and a total score of 1,374.7 out of the listed 2,000-point maximum. The row also shows category-component values for intake quality and governance, academic excellence, infrastructure and living experience, personality and leadership development, and placement and career progression. These values belong to the 2025 survey edition; the page does not show corresponding component scores for AIFD’s 2024 row in the same view.
The movement from 16 to 15 is a one-place change in relative position between two annual editions. It does not by itself show that AIFD’s own score rose, that every part of the institution improved, or that the change was caused by any one factor. Other institutions’ scores and positions can change as well. Read the year, category and publisher next to the number whenever you quote it.
How to read the score
India Today’s page describes its ranking as an annual survey of colleges in fashion design and labels the columns as an overall rank, city, five parameters, an objective score, a perceptual score and a total score. The page explains that its objective score combines data taken from colleges and validated by MDRA, while its perceptual score is based on a survey among faculty, students and recruiters. It describes parameter groups covering intake quality and governance; academic excellence; infrastructure and living experience; personality and leadership development; and placement and career progression.
This is a composite institutional comparison. A total score can help explain the position inside the publisher’s method, but it does not tell an applicant what their own classes, studio access, faculty contact or placement support will be. The listed components can help identify which parts of the survey contribute to the score, but they are not direct measures of a particular course’s teaching or a student’s outcome. AIFD’s row is not a programme-level score for Fashion and Apparel Design, Applied or Graphic Design, Interior Design, or a postgraduate diploma. Avoid presenting the institute rank as a separate rank for any one programme.
What the 2024-to-2025 change does and does not show
AIFD’s rank is one position higher in the 2025 table than in the 2024 column shown beside it. That comparison is directly supported by the ranking page, but it does not supply enough information to attribute a cause. The 2025 component scores are available in the table, while the 2024 component scores for AIFD are not shown in the same row display. Without comparable prior-year scores, response counts and any methodological changes, it would be unsound to claim that a particular parameter drove the movement.
Ranks are relative and bounded by the participating institutions and the publisher’s category. A rank of 15 in a fashion design survey should not be compared numerically with a rank of 15 in another publisher’s national college list, with an NIRF category, or with an admission merit position. Even two pages from one publisher may cover different disciplines or editions. If the ranking page is revised, keep the edition date and category attached to the number so a future reader can see which result is being discussed.
AIFD’s NIRF material is a different record
AIFD’s own NIRF page has separate headings for “NIRF College 2024” and “NIRF Overall 2024”. In the saved page checked for this update, the College 2024 item points to a placeholder link rather than a downloadable result. The linked Overall 2024 document is a data-capture report submitted by AIFD to the Ministry of Education’s National Institutional Ranking Framework. It identifies the institution and reports submitted institutional data, including placement and higher-study rows, but it is not itself a ranking position or score table.
For that reason, this page reports the India Today-MDRA fashion design result with its publisher and year and does not convert the NIRF submission into a rank. A reader comparing published results should check that each item is an actual result table with a category, year and position or score. A participation list, institution-submitted data form, or link label is not enough to infer a ranked place.
Use the rank as one comparison input
If the India Today-MDRA result is relevant to your shortlist, consider it alongside the programme you intend to study, current fee schedule, curriculum, facilities and source-scoped outcomes. Ask whether the factors that matter to you are visible in the ranking’s parameters. For example, the table’s placement and career progression component is one part of a composite score; it does not provide a cohort-by-cohort salary distribution on this ranking page. A separate institutional NIRF report may provide historical cohort counts, but that is a different dataset and should be labelled with its own programme scope and years.
Before relying on a ranking, save the original result page and note the publication edition, discipline, methodology and whether its data are current. Compare two institutions inside the same edition and category where possible. Read the component scores rather than treating the headline position as a complete account of quality, and check whether the publication explains its data collection and survey basis. A ranking is a summary of a particular method; it is not a promise of employment, a guarantee of admission, or a substitute for checking the programme details that affect your own decision.