Maharashtra B-school cut-offs to rise as more students score higher in MBA CET

With more students crossing the 50% mark this year in the state common entrance test (CET) for masters’ degrees in business administration (MBA) and management studies (MMS), the competition for seats in Maharashtra’s top business schools is set to be tougher.

As per MH-CET results for MBA/MMS released on Sunday, 5,709 students scored more than 50% of the total score this year as compared to 4,920 in 2018. The highest score this time, though, was 164 out of 200, a mark lower than last year’s.

This year, 1.12 lakh students from across the state applied to write the MBA/MMS CET and 1.03 lakh appeared for the examination. Last year, 98,606 students appeared for the examination.

Experts said students would face stiff competition this year to qualify for seats at top management colleges in Maharashtra. "Students have become quite choosy about their colleges. The competition has been increasing for the last few years and this time, is expected to be more intense," said Lakshmi Mohan, director, ITM Business School, Navi Mumbai. 

Ashutosh Paibhale, founder and managing director, eSquareMC, an education and management consulting firm, said the cut-offs in management colleges will likely rise, especially with the introduction of 16% reservation for socially and educationally backward castes (SEBC) or Marathas and 10% quota for the economically weaker section (EWS). "The cutoffs for students from the open category are expected to be way higher than last year," he said. 

Private management colleges have 65% seats (45.5% for home-university candidates and 19.5% for non-home university candidates) reserved for students from the state, 15% for students from across the country and 20% reserved under the institute’s control. With the implementation of SEBC and EWS reservations, the general category home-university candidates will compete for 10% of the total seats. 

"Students should watch out for category-wise cutoff ranks of previous years. Irrespective of the difficulty level of exams, the cutoff ranks for various categories, except for open category, are identical every year," said Paibhale.