Welingkar Mumbai Admission 2027: Cutoff, Fees & Placements

Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research, known as WeSchool, is a private AICTE-approved standalone management institute in Matunga, central Mumbai. Its own "Who We Are" page states the institute was established in 1977 and runs under S.P. Mandali (Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali), a Pune-based education trust founded in 1888. It operates two campuses, Mumbai and Bengaluru. This page covers Mumbai only.

Two very different products sit on the same campus, and confusing them is the most common mistake applicants make here:

• The PGDM, a two-year autonomous diploma. The AICTE Mandatory Disclosure for AY2024-25 lists eight approved full-time PGDM programmes at the Mumbai campus with 720 sanctioned seats in total (AY2024-25, welingkar.org AICTE Mandatory Disclosure).
• The MMS, a two-year Master of Management Studies degree of the University of Mumbai. The official MMS page states the programme started in 1984 and gives a present intake of "120 + 1" (welingkar.edu.in MMS page).

The same MMS page states the institute is permanently affiliated to the University of Mumbai, has autonomous status granted by UGC and is approved by AICTE. The institute's own page additionally lists NBA accreditation for its full-time PGDM programmes, ACBSP and SAQS accreditation, and MBA equivalence from AIU.

On the one ranking that publishes its methodology, the PGDM entity was ranked 75 in Management with a score of 49.08 (NIRF India Rankings 2025, nirfindia.org), against rank 84 and a score of 46.53 the year before (NIRF India Rankings 2024).

The PGDM and the MMS are two separate admission processes with two different authorities. Settle which one you are chasing before you pay an application fee.

PGDM, run by the institute. The official Mumbai PGDM page for the 2026-28 batch lists five accepted tests: CAT (2025), XAT (2026), ATMA (February 2026), CMAT (2026) and GMAT (2023 onwards). Published eligibility is a minimum 50% in graduation, which must be completed by June 2026. The AICTE Mandatory Disclosure AY2024-25 adds a detail worth knowing: the institute does not allot any specific number of seats to a given test, and selection is based on overall performance. A strong CMAT or ATMA score is therefore not competing inside a smaller ring-fenced pool than CAT.

The selection weightage is published identically on the programme page and in the AICTE filing:

In one line: 60 of the 100 marks sit outside your entrance percentile, which is why a mid-percentile candidate with a clean academic record converts here more often than at a percentile-driven school.

MMS, run through the state. The MMS seat is a CAP seat. The institute's official AY2024-25 MMS admission document states admission is provisional and subject to final approval of the Jt. DTE, DTE, Admission Regulating Authority and University of Mumbai, and lists accepted score cards as CMAT, CAT, MH-CET, MAT, ATMA, XAT or GMAT. Seats vacant after CAP are filled through institute-level ACAP rounds, and candidates admitted against CAP vacancy pay open-category fees whatever their category.

In one line: WeSchool publishes a per-annum PGDM figure and a full-course MMS figure, and they are not in the same league — the cheapest comparison you can run is between two programmes on the same campus.

Two cautions. First, the ₹7,50,000 on the live programme page and the ₹7,00,000 in the AY2024-25 AICTE filing are different years, not a contradiction — always read the year attached to the number. Second, we do not multiply a per-annum figure by two to produce a course total. Fee revisions, one-time charges and deposits do not behave that way, and the institute has not published a consolidated total. Ask for the written instalment schedule before you accept a seat.

MMS fees are set within the state-regulated structure and are revised annually, so the AY2026-27 MMS figure is [FIGURE MISSING — AY2026-27] until the institute publishes it.

In one line: the institute's AICTE filing publishes a programme-wise entrance-test percentile cut-off for 2023, and the flagship PGDM sat at 80.02.

Source: PGDM Mandatory Disclosure AY2024-25, welingkar.org, table headed "Entrance test Cut off %tile (2023)".

Read the label before you compare. The same institute's AY2023-24 disclosure published a differently headed series for the same year — "Cut off marks (2023)" out of 100, with PGDM at 60.00/100 — which is a composite score on the 40/15/40/5 scale, not a percentile. Two official documents, two different metrics, one year. Any figure you see quoted without its column heading is unreadable.

Also read what a cut-off is here. Because the entrance test carries only 40 of 100 marks, the percentile above is the lowest admitted score after the full composite was applied, not a screening threshold announced in advance. WeSchool does not publish an advance qualifying percentile. Practically, the shortlist call comes from the composite, and the interview stage is where a 75-percentile profile either recovers or does not.

The 2026-28 cut-off percentiles are [FIGURE MISSING — AY2026-27] and will appear in the next AICTE Mandatory Disclosure on welingkar.org.

In one line: for the cohort that graduated in AY2023-24, the institute filed a median of ₹11,50,000 with NIRF and a flagship-PGDM average of ₹12.46 lakh with AICTE — the gap between those two numbers is the whole point.

Source: NIRF 2025, Prin. L.N. Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research (PGDM) submission, institute ID IR-M-S-19472.

Programme-wise averages for the same 2022-2024 batch, from the institute's AICTE Mandatory Disclosure AY2024-25 (₹ lakh per annum):

Three honest readings. The averages are pulled up by outliers — one ₹40 lakh offer in Research & Business Analytics moves an average, not a median, which is why the NIRF median of ₹11,50,000 is the number to plan a loan against. The placed counts differ sharply by programme: 145 of 180 in the flagship, 32 of 60 in Healthcare. And the two official filings do not agree on how many were placed from this cohort — AICTE's programme tables sum to 520, NIRF's return says 635 — so ask the institute which basis each uses before quoting either.

The Mumbai campus is at Lakhamsi Napoo Road, Matunga (East), Mumbai 400019, a short walk from Matunga on the Central line and Matunga Road on the Western line (AICTE Mandatory Disclosure AY2024-25, welingkar.org).

What the institute has declared about the physical campus in the same filing:

• 23 classrooms, each between 35 and 51 square metres of carpet area, and 8 tutorial rooms in the same size band.
• An Innovation Laboratory, and two computer centres with capacities of 83 and 92.
• A central examination facility of 10 classrooms seating 60 each and 13 seating 120 each.
• 175 online examination nodes on 1114 Mbps of bandwidth.
• Barrier-free built environment for disabled and elderly persons, and a fire and safety certificate available.

On hostels, the AY2023-24 disclosure is specific and worth quoting to yourself before you plan: separate hostels for boys and girls are available within 2 km of the college with 24x7 internet, admission is on a first-come-first-served basis, and preference is given to non-locals. This is not an on-campus residential school — the accommodation is nearby, and the seat is not guaranteed by your admission.

Matunga is central Mumbai, so the living-cost base is a Mumbai base, not a satellite-campus one. Budget it honestly rather than assuming the hostel band covers everything.

Four situations where the honest answer is that this is the wrong seat for you.

You have a strong MH-CET score and Maharashtra domicile. Then look at the MMS on this very campus before the PGDM. The institute's own published fees put the open-category MMS at ₹4,31,000 for the whole course in AY2024-25 against a PGDM tuition of ₹7,50,000 for a single year in the 2026-28 batch. Recruiters largely visit the campus, not the programme code. Paying private-diploma fees when a University of Mumbai degree on the same campus is within your CET reach is a decision you should have to justify, not default into.

You need a high certainty of being placed. The institute's own AY2024-25 filing shows the 2022-2024 batch placing 32 of 60 in Healthcare, 31 of 58 in Rural Management and 34 of 60 in Media & Entertainment. Those are official numbers from the institute, not a critic's estimate, and they are the risk you are underwriting.

You are borrowing the whole fee. A per-annum tuition of ₹7,50,000 plus a hostel band starting at ₹1,60,000 is a substantial loan against a median that the institute itself filed at ₹11,50,000 for the AY2023-24 cohort. Run the EMI against the median, never against the maximum.

You want a sector specialisation as a back-door. The healthcare, rural, retail and media PGDMs narrow your recruiter set by design. Choose one because you want that industry — not because its cut-off percentile was lower.

Compare on decision axes, not on listicle ranks. Four axes decide this one.

Route and fee band. If you hold a strong MAH MBA/MMS CET score with Maharashtra domicile, the Mumbai names you are weighing — JBIMS Mumbai and SIMSREE Mumbai among them — sit in a state-regulated fee structure that a private PGDM does not. Verify each institute's approved fee and admission route on its own official page and on the DTE Maharashtra CAP notification, then compare like with like. The sharpest version of this comparison is internal: WeSchool's own MMS against WeSchool's own PGDM.

Test flexibility. WeSchool's PGDM accepts CAT, XAT, CMAT, ATMA and GMAT and, per its AICTE filing, ring-fences no seats by test. If your CAT percentile underperformed but your CMAT or XAT did not, that flexibility is a real, checkable advantage over schools that publish a CAT-only door.

Sector depth versus generalist brand. Against K J Somaiya Mumbai, SIBM Pune or NMIMS Mumbai, WeSchool's distinguishing feature is eight AICTE-approved PGDM variants, including business design, healthcare, rural, retail, media & entertainment and research & business analytics. If you want a general management brand, that breadth is not the reason to come. If you want a declared sector, it is.

Ranking, read properly. NIRF placed the WeSchool PGDM entity at 75 in Management in 2025 and 84 in 2024 (nirfindia.org). Look up each peer in that same published table with its score, rather than in a paid ranking whose methodology you cannot inspect.