Mumbai: Lateral entry to second-year MBA , a scheme launched by the All-India Council of Technical Education ( AICTE ) this year, saw fewer takers in Maharashtra. While over 6,300 engineering graduates initially showed interest in getting their B-school degree in a year's time, and over 4,300 participated in the process, in the end, only 1,855 aspirants took admissions. This, when the total number of vacant seats available was over 6,000 (see box).
Less than one-third of these seats were eventually filled. The catch, however, was that none of these seats were vacant in the top-rung colleges. An official from the state CET cell, however, pointed out that seats in top-rung colleges get filled in the first year and therefore, are unlikely to have vacancies in the second year.
Seats only in colleges that have not managed to fill 100% seats in the first year can be thrown open for lateral admissions, the official added. Maharashtra rolled out the lateral entry scheme for MBA this year based on the guidelines released by the AICTE. Students who had completed BE/BTech and the four-year Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) and Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) were eligible for direct second-year admissions to MBA/MMS programmes.
While the four-year BMS and BBA programmes were implemented only last year, the first batch will graduate in 2027. This year, therefore, only engineering graduates were eligible for this scheme. Students could have applied only to colleges which have.