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Lovely Professional University (LPU) located in Phagwara, Punjab is one of the very popular universities, thanks to their marketing. It has multiple schools, including Engineering, Design, Law, Hotel Management, Humanities, Commerce etc. But StudyGhot is currently focussing on Engineering colleges, so I will be only reviewing it from a B.Tech aspirant’s point of view.
LPU Ranking and Reviews
LPU has been ranked 50 as per the 2024 Engineering colleges rank by NIRF. Now these NIRF rankings have to be taken with a pinch (in fact a tablespoon of salt) because a lot of colleges do not participate and secondly because some of the really good colleges don’t put in the effort to submit data and ‘beautify’ them to satisfy NIRF criteria. Prof V Ramgopal Rao, the current VC of BITS Pilani, and a former director of IIT Delhi has expressed his dissatisfaction at the NIRF ranking criteria.
LPU spends a lot on marketing, therefore submitting excellent data to NIRF would have been one of the top agenda of their marketing team. Do not judge them on that; every private college does it. Otherwise, why would VIT be ranked higher than NIT Surathkal and BITS Pilani? If you had a 3 digit rank in JEE Mains and had to choose between CSE in NIT Surathkal and CSE in VIT Vellore (category 1, with lowest fee), which one would you choose and why? Think about it.
If you visit a public forum like Quora and search for reviews on IIT Bombay, you would not find 100% positive reviews. There will be surely a few students who are unhappy with it – the faculty, the hostels, the academic pressure, or the placements. But if you look at the reviews of LPU, you would feel everyone is happy with it. Very few write their own personal experience. They just write in the third person. Unrealistic, isn’t it? So, please do not trust such overly positive reviews on Quora or Reddit or any other forum.
Does that mean LPU is bad and to be completely avoided? Honestly, no. It can be on your watchlist if you are a B.Tech aspirant, but somewhere down the list. Let’s discuss in detail.
Admission Process
LPU admits students to their B.Tech program based on their own entrance exam called LPUNEST. They also admit students based on JEE ranks. The applications for LPUNEST 2025 are already open at the time of writing this article.
The full fee per semester would come to around ₹1.7L for a Comp Sc course, and ₹2L for specialisations like Blockchain/Data Science, but the college offers various scholarships based on the score obtained in LPUNEST.
From my personal experience (my son attempted this test a couple of years back as a back up), it’s pretty easy to get a scholarship if you are an average student of class 11, 12 who knows the basics well. The college offers upto 32% scholarship to non CSE branches students who score between 80 and 90 percentile in JEE mains and more for those who are above 90.
The entrance exams will be conducted in Jan-Feb and counselling/seat allotment will be starting in February. That is, much before the counselling of JEE or even colleges like VIT/SRM begin. It is their way of conducting early admissions, getting students to block seats by paying the fee (and earning interest!), until JoSAA counselling starts. They assure a refund (minus nominal charges) if you withdraw later, but a few students I spoke to have complained about delay in issuing the refund. So block this seat so early only if you are completely hopeless about getting a seat elsewhere (VIT, Manipal, SRM, Thapar) or if you have a strong reason for joining LPU.
Campus and Infrastructure
The campus is over 600 acres and includes other schools apart from Engineering. The college is located on NH44 on the highway.
There are hostel facilities for over 50000 students (you got that right). The NIRF data shows over 6000 seats approved for B.Tech 1st year admission. (Compare that to 877 at IIT Madras!) The campus has food courts, malls, restaurants, sports facilities and everything to make your college life enjoyable. The huge number of students can make it feel a little crowded.
LPU does not mandate staying on the campus. The college does offer transport to day scholars. However, it’s a little away from Phagwara town on a highway and it may not be safe to travel outside the campus every day. The security on the campus is said to be excellent with ID cards and swiping required to enter and exit the hostels.
The college encourages start ups and innovation and offers facilities for incubation and entrepreneurship.
The sports facility is something the university has got to boast about. Many LPU students were part of the Asian games and brought laurels to the country. If you are someone interested in pursuing professional sports along with academics, this should be one of the options you should consider. You would also hear that Neeraj Chopra, Indian Olympics medalist was a student of LPU. However, Wikipedia reveals that he joined LPU for a BA degree in 2021, by when he was already a champion. It could also be that he joined LPU as a brand ambassador, we never know. 😉 Still, LPU is a university that really encourages sports, something you may not be able to in say, a BITS Pilani due to its academic rigour.
The college has a diverse batch of students, coming in from various parts of the country and even from abroad (thanks to the marketing team of LPU). It will help students come out of their comfort zone and interact with international students, which will help them in their careers later on.
Placements at LPU
Most engineering aspirants consider placement stats as one of the parameters for judging a college. However, colleges tend to inflate then numbers and show half-truths on their websites, therefore please do not trust the placement stats on the website.
If you look at the NIRF data for LPU, the median salary of students of the 2019-20 batch (that’s the latest available, even on the 2024 rankings page) was ₹6.5L. The website claims of an ex-student who has a ₹3Cr package, but have conveniently ignored to mention that this was not his first job from college. He is an alumni who has jumped jobs and reached this level through his own efforts. His details can be verified on LinkedIn. He’s just another brand ambassador.
Please note that when a batch of 6000+ students sit for placements, there’s nothing really great about 2 or 3 making it to Google or Microsoft. They would have anyway made it. For regular companies too, the competition is intense and can be frustrating for students to attend 15 rounds of interviews and still not be placed. With each passing round, the package size usually keeps diminishing. A student should be prepared to work hard and get placed in the early rounds, irrespective of whether they are in LPU or IITs. But in IITs, the batch size being less, you would probably get placed in 6-7 rounds at least.
Who should consider applying to LPU for B.Tech?
The first category of students who should consider applying to LPU are the ones who are not very confident of getting into colleges like VIT, SRM, Manipal, Thapar etc. Think of LPU as below these colleges. If you are struggling with your JEE syllabus and not faring very well in practice tests, you can write LPUNEST and block a seat, so that you know you have a seat in hand. If you are doing ok and think you can make it to VIT, SRM, Manipal, you can give this a miss. The admissions to LPU happen in Feb, therefore you can check your JEE mains result and take a call. If you are able to get above 80 percentile in JEE Mains, you should be good enough to get a seat in VIT, SRM, Manipal through their entrance exams.
The second category of students are those who are interested in pursuing sports as a full time career, but are just studying due to family pressure. Ideally, you need not even join engineering, but can consider any other degree that’s less taxing academically. The college will let you pursue sports and if things don’t go as per plans, you have your degree to fall back upon. As per some students I spoke to, the college has only about 30 hours of classes per week, allowing you ample free time. This helps budding entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams as well. The ones interested in getting placed in Google can also find time to learn and master coding!
And hey, did someone mention about drugs and stuff on campus? Trust me, it happens everywhere. Mentally tough students can stay away from it and those who waver will get into bad habits, even if they are in a top IIT. It’s all about the student’s character, which is more or less shaped by the time they are 15-16.
You may read our other college reviews here:
Manipal Institute of Technology Review
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Review
