MHCET 2013 to be scrapped

Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), Maharashtra has decided to scrapMHCET from 2013. Sources from DTE reveal that the DTE officials hold the view that a single management exam is much more beneficial for the students.

Only a week ago it was declared that MHCET 2012 will be postponed for avoiding its clash with the CMAT exam window. The fact that DTE gave more importance to the CMAT exam was probably the indication of CMAT replacing MHCET in 2013.

It was quite expected that CMAT will be replacing both MAT and MHCET, but AIMA has already announced the exam dates for MAT 2012 and 2013. However, MHCET will be replaced by CMAT in 2013, which will in turn increase the number of CMAT applicants as MHCET pool of candidates will now switch to CMAT exam. This will also prove to be beneficial for regional schools in Maharashtra as they will have large number of students from a diverse pool applying for admissions.

DTE on December 31, 2011 announced that institutes such as Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS) and Sydenham Institute of Management research and entrepreneurship (SIMSREE) will be accepting CMAT 2012 scores. Earlier, these institutes accepted MHCET scores primarily for admissions. Moreover, these institutes kept high cut offs in CAT exam as a major admission criteria due to which only few students could get admission but now the number of admissions is  surely expected to increase.  KJ Somaiya and Welingkar will be accepting CMAT 2012 scores too.

Students taking MHCET exam will find CMAT to be more beneficial as the MHCET paper structure was quite different from other exams whereas, the structure of CMAT closely follows the pattern of NMAT and SNAP, which the candidates are more familiar with.

Although DTE officials are in favor of a single management exam, there are certain issues that need to be taken care of.  Most of the applicants from the interior regions of Maharashtra taking MHCET, a paper pencil based test may not be so tech savvy and can find it difficult to appear for CMAT online test. It will be a big challenge for AICTE to cater to the needs of such applicants.

CMAT replacing most of the MBA entrance exams in India is expected to open the doors of opportunities for students and management institutes but at the same time it is also a challenge for AICTE to conduct a single national level management entrance test in a diverse country like India.

How successful AICTE is in conducting CMAT is yet to be seen with both students and institutes following “wait and watch policy”.