Karnataka PGCET: Eligibility, Exam Pattern and Admissions

Karnataka PGCET decides admission to government-quota postgraduate professional seats in the state, and almost everything that determines an outcome sits in the information bulletin rather than in the test. Every figure below is read from KEA's official PGCET-2026 Information Bulletin, published 26 March 2026, and from the notifications on the KEA portal.

One test, three separate merit lists

KEA conducts PGCET for MBA, MCA and M.E. / M.Tech / M.Arch admission. There is a separate paper for each — and for M.E./M.Tech a separate paper per discipline — and, the part most candidates miss, a separate merit list for each.

The bulletin is unambiguous about how that list is built: merit is decided solely on the marks obtained in the entrance test, without taking the marks obtained in the qualifying examination. Your degree percentage does not improve your rank. It decides only whether you are allowed to hold a seat at all.

The paper

All questions are compulsory — there is no internal choice. The only way a wrong attempt costs you anything is marking more than one option: the bulletin states marks will not be awarded where multiple answers are indicated against a question. You may carry a replica of your filled OMR sheet out of the hall, and KEA asks you to preserve it for one year.

On how long you actually get, the bulletin contradicts itself: the duration clause says 150 minutes, while the OMR instructions describe an initial ten minutes followed by 120 minutes for shading answers. Go by the timing printed on your admit ticket, not by either figure.

Eligibility, and the rounding trap

Across all three streams the requirement is an aggregate of 50% in the qualifying degree, taken together across every subject in every year or semester — not the final year alone. For SCA, SCB, SCC, ST and Category-I candidates of Karnataka the figure is 45%.

The bulletin then adds a line that costs people seats every year: rounding off the aggregate percentage is not permitted. 49.6% is not 50%. It appears separately under the MBA, MCA and M.E./M.Tech clauses, so it is not an editing slip.

Reservation is available only to candidates of Karnataka origin, and a study certificate from the institutions where you passed SSLC, PUC or your degree is compulsory at verification.

MBA

A recognised bachelor's degree of minimum three years, with 50% aggregate taken together in all subjects including languages.

Part-time MBA adds two conditions that rule most applicants out: at least three years of work experience after the degree — as on 31 July 2026 for that cycle — and current employment within a radial distance of 40 km of the institution where admission is sought.

MCA

Either a recognised BCA or a bachelor's degree in Computer Science Engineering or equivalent, or a B.Sc, B.Com or B.A. with Mathematics at 10+2 or at degree level, with bridge courses as the university prescribes. No part-time MCA is offered.

M.E. / M.Tech / M.Arch

The relevant degree at the same 50% / 45% aggregate. Eligibility here is mapped course by course rather than by broad discipline, so read the course-wise eligibility list KEA publishes alongside the bulletin before choosing course codes.

Ties are broken in a fixed order

Where two candidates score the same, the bulletin resolves it in sequence: total aggregate marks in the qualifying examination first, then age — with the elder candidate placed above the younger — and if everything is still equal, by draw of lots.

Work from this year's notification, not last year's bulletin

The 2026 cycle shows why. The bulletin published on 26 March timetabled the MBA and MCA papers for 24 May. KEA then issued a revised schedule on 14 May, and those papers were actually held on 14 June 2026, with answer-key objections opening the next day. The M.E./M.Tech paper went ahead on 23 May as printed.

Anyone planning around the bulletin date alone would have been three weeks out. Read every date off the official PGCET page as it stands today.

Where the seats are

This directory records MBA at 182 Karnataka colleges, MCA at 27 and M.Tech at 42, each listed against the institution on its college page. Our PGCET exam page carries the exam record, and MBA in Karnataka sets PGCET against the KMAT and CAT routes — where the fee gap is larger than most candidates expect.

The closing ranks this site holds

4,086 verified PGCET closing ranks across 174 colleges, all from PGCET-2025. They are transcribed from KEA's own allotment cut-off publications for both the Rest-of-Karnataka and 371(j) Kalyana-Karnataka pools, and you can browse them on the PGCET cut-offs page. All three merit lists and both rounds are now held:

Read the year, the course and the round before you use any of them. A PGCET-2025 Round 1 rank is not a prediction for 2026, and a Round 1 rank is not a Round 2 rank — second-round ranks generally close later, because seats freed by candidates who left are redistributed. At Alliance University the MCA General Merit rank moved from 3,121 in Round 1 to 4,700 in Round 2, and that is ordinary rather than remarkable.

What is still not held: the sponsored quota. The M.Tech Rest-of-Karnataka panels print an SPN column — 112 values across the two rounds — and the MBA and MCA panels print an NKN column. Both are separate seat pools rather than categories, so neither is loaded: a sponsored-quota closing rank filed under an ordinary category would read as a perfectly ordinary number and be wrong. A rank for either attributed to this site would be invented.

M.Tech is where the branch detail lives — 77 distinct specialisations in Round 1 alone, from Structural Engineering to VLSI Design. MBA and MCA are course-level by comparison, because KEA prints far fewer named variants for them.

⚠️ One warning about the source documents, for anyone checking these against KEA: the portal also publishes MOCK allotment cut-offs, and its filenames do not tell you which is which. A file whose name ends kannada may hold an English first-round table, and one ending _FIN is the second round rather than the final word on the first. The heading printed inside each PDF is the only reliable statement of what it is. Mock ranks are a trial run and are not admission cut-offs.