Somaiya and Welingkar: Two Schools, Two Admission Systems

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Two schools in the same city, on many of the same candidates' lists, reachable through more than one entrance exam between them. It sounds like a straightforward comparison and it is the situation that produces the most confused applications of the whole cycle, because the candidate ends up standing in two different admission systems at once without realising they are different.

A national entrance exam and a state-level route are not variants of one process. They differ in who administers the admission, what concepts apply, and where the binding document lives. This piece sets out that structural difference, gives you a way to compare two schools properly when they sit on different routes, and is explicit about what has to be read at source rather than taken from any summary.

You Are Comparing Two Systems, Not Two Schools

The framing error sits at the start and everything else follows from it.

Candidates comparing two Mumbai schools naturally line up the things they can see: reputation, location, programmes, and whatever cutoff figures they can find. That comparison assumes the two admissions work the same way underneath, and when one school sits on a national exam route and the other on a state-level one, they do not.

In a national route the institute is the decision maker end to end. It publishes its own criteria, builds its own shortlist, runs its own selection stage and issues its own offer, and you deal with one body and one policy document.

A state-level route splits those functions. The entrance exam is a state examination, the admission process is administered centrally by a state authority, and the institute participates in that process rather than running it. Several questions you would ordinarily put to the institute are not the institute's to answer.

What Actually Differs Between the Two Systems

Why the Last Difference Matters Most

The fifth difference quietly invalidates most side-by-side cutoff comparisons, and it is the one nobody notices.

In a centralised allotment, a closing figure is not policy at all. It is an outcome: where a round happened to close given that year's applicants, paper and preference patterns. Comparing it against a national-route school's published qualifying minimum is comparing an outcome with a criterion, which produces a number that looks like a comparison and means nothing.

That is also why the two figures move for different reasons. One shifts when the institute revises its policy. The other shifts when the field shifts, without anybody changing anything.

Comparing Two Schools on Different Routes

The comparison is still worth doing. It just has to be a comparison of processes rather than of numbers.

Question	National exam route	State-level route
Who administers admission	The institute	A central state authority
Where the binding document lives	The institute's policy	The authority's published rules
Does domicile matter	Generally not a concept	Frequently a documented condition
How you receive a place	An offer from the institute	Allotment across rounds, by preference
What a published figure means	Usually a qualifying criterion	Often a round's closing position

Seven Notes When Your List Spans Two Systems

Preference Filling Is Its Own Skill

One part of a state route has no national analogue and deserves separate attention.

A centralised allotment asks you to rank options, in a short window, under rules published by the authority. That ranking has consequences a single institute application does not, and the mechanics of rounds and preferences tend to look obvious in summary and carry specific conditions in the actual document.

Read those rules while you are calm rather than on the evening the window opens. This is the part of a state route that most rewards preparation and most punishes improvisation.

Why This Piece Gives You No Figures

Consistent with the argument above, we are not providing cutoff numbers for either school.

Figures in a national route are published per cycle by the institute and revised between years. Figures in a state route are frequently outcomes rather than policy and change with the field. In both cases a number carried over from a previous cycle and presented as current is misinformation with a decimal point attached.

Where a real published formula exists anywhere in this landscape it is worth seeing, as an example of what one looks like. IIFT's 2026 to 2028 shortlist weighted the entrance score at 90 percent, work experience at 5 and gender diversity at 5. IIT Bombay's SJMSOM used 75 percent entrance score, 20 percent academics and 5 percent work experience for the same batch. IIM Calcutta stated qualifying CAT 2025 minimums of 80 sectional and 85 overall. All three need re-verifying per cycle and none of them applies to the schools in this piece.

Whether to Add the Second Exam

If one of the two schools sits on an exam you have not registered for, that is a decision with a deadline in the middle of the year rather than at the end of it.

The honest test is one question: if that school made you an offer, would you take it? If yes, the exam earns its registration window in your calendar. If you would probably decline, you are buying an option you will not exercise, and the money and attention belong in your primary preparation.

Most of the content transfers between entrance exams. What does not is the structure, meaning question counts, sections, time limits and marking rules, and therefore the whole attempt strategy. CAT applies plus three for a correct answer, minus one for an incorrect MCQ, zero for unattempted and no negative marking on Type In The Answer questions, across three sections with hard 40 minute limits. Another exam may differ on all of it, and attempt behaviour tuned to one scheme is actively wrong under another.

What Both Systems Read at the Selection Stage

One thing does hold across both routes, and it is worth ending on because it is where a candidate's effort actually has purchase.

Whichever system admits you, the selection stage reads more than a score. Depending on the institute that can include tenth, twelfth and graduation marks, consistency across the three, sectional scores, work experience, gender diversity, academic diversity, category, professional qualifications, extracurriculars, achievements, positions of responsibility, certifications, internships and gap years, plus how you perform at the stage itself. No school uses all of them and the weightings differ sharply.

Two of those terms get misread often enough to define. Academic diversity means extra consideration for backgrounds underrepresented in MBA cohorts, which covers humanities, commerce, medicine, law and other non-engineering routes. Work experience generally means full time work after graduation, though what counts varies by institute in months, type of organisation, role and relevance.

Shortlists arrive across January to March with rounds through that window, and final offers and waitlist movement run to roughly March to May. The preparation for that stage needs no result to begin, because the material is your own profile and your own reasons, and it is the part of this entire process that is least affected by which system you happen to be standing in.

The Summary

Two schools in the same city can sit in two different admission systems, and comparing them as though they were one is what makes this pairing confusing.

In a national route the institute decides and publishes what binds. In a state route a central authority administers the process, domicile and seat categories apply, places are allotted across rounds by preference, and a published figure is frequently a round's closing position rather than a criterion. Comparing that figure against another school's qualifying minimum is comparing an outcome with a rule.

So compare processes rather than numbers, keep separate notes for the two systems, label every figure with what kind it is, and read the authority's material for the state route rather than only the institute's page. Where a second exam is involved, settle it with one question about whether you would accept the offer, and settle it in that exam's registration window rather than in December.

If your list mixes both systems in a single table, that table is producing comparisons that cannot hold. A CAT preparation strategy review can pressure test the list, and a personalised CAT preparation plan keeps the exam work moving while you do the reading.