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Careers360 takes a look into the M.Tech admissions for NITS via CCMT 2014 through an Interview with the Coordinator CCMT 2014 – Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary.CCMT 2014– Centralized Counselling for M.Tech/M.Arch/M.Plan 2014 is the common counseling conducted by MNIT Jaipur for admissions to the M.Tech/M.Arch/M.Plan courses at all the NITs and other centrally funded institutes like IIIT Allahabad, SPA Vijayawada to name a few.
CCMT 2014 is being spearheaded by Prof. I. K. Bhat who is the Director of MNIT Jaipur as well as the Chairman CCMT 2014. In his key note to the students, he stresses that CCMT 2014 is resolute to select bright students for M.Tech., M,Arch., and M. Plan. programmes in premier technical institutes of the country and that CCMT being the single application for all participating institutes will reduce physical, mental and financial burden on the candidates
The admissions for CCMT 2014 are being co-ordinated by Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, MNIT Jaipur and also the Associate Dean (R &C). Speaking to Careers360, Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary points out that CCMT originated with the idea of easing out the problems of students with a single common counseling platform for the M.Tech admissions to the NITs and other central institutes. Read on to know more…..
Careers360: CCMT was started in 2012 or prior to that? How long is it that CCMT has been in existence?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: CCMT was started in 2011 with only a few institutes participating in it. It actually gathered momentum in 2012 with more institutes coming on board and we can say a larger participation started in 2012. It has been getting better with more and more institutes joining in and this year 33 institutes are participating in it.
Careers360: Was it the result of the directive from the MHRD or is it the initiative of MNIT?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: This is the initiative of all NITs. It was seen that students had to face a lot of hardships applying to all institutes, going to different places for admissions, interviews and all. It involves a lot of money, effort and time. This could be saved we felt with a common counseling and that is how CCMT started initially in 2011 with it now being synonymous for M.Tech admissions at NITs.
Careers360: Normally all students do think that CCMT means NIT M.Tech admissions? How is it that all the NITs were not in from the start. Some have joined last year and some this year? The brochure mentions that MNIT Jaipur organized it in 2012 with 20 participating institutes, 2013 with 26 participating institutes and now 2014 with 33 institutes participating.
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: CCMT is now popular and has a brand presence with all students now knowing about the common counseling and CCMT. NITs are known institutes so students naturally look eagerly for the CCMT notification and subsequent admissions.
Most NITs were in last year. This year NIT Puducherry, NIT Goa, NIT Nagaland, SPA Vijayawadaand IIIT Allahabad have joined in. For NITS it’s mandatory now. It is now a directive from MHRD. In fact the council consists of all the directors of all the NITs so they all are participants of CCMT 2014 now.
Careers360: How many registrations do you expect this year? Female candidate ratio would be how much?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: We expect at least 35000 registrations and we have up to 1000 registrations per day on an average. The last date is May 19 so we expect the registrations to go up in these last few days.
About 20% of the registrations are from female candidates.
Careers360: The CCMT site was down for sometime the other day? Students were a bit panicky about it as a day is lost?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: No, It may be for a little time only or so or due to browser problems. We have a dedicated team on this. They are there to ensure that students do not face any problems at all. The help lines are there. In fact all the NITs are serving as help lines. We have their numbers listed out. Students from any area can contact us and we will definitely help out.
The website is closely monitored by the team from morning- 8am to evening -8 pm from Monday to Saturday. Any student facing any problem is welcome to call us up and we will sort it out.
We get around 200 to 300 emails each day and we respond to each one of them.
Careers360: GATE this year has been completely online and numerical questions have reportedly taken a bit of the student’s time considering that they are not used to it. How do you think this will impact the cutoffs for this year?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: Last year there was a drop in valid GATE scores. This year I don’t expect major changes in the Cutoff rates. In spite of GATE being online and numerical questions, I feel the students have performed well. There should be no major difference in the cutoff rates this year- at least no drastic changes.
Careers360: Integrated Courses are also being promoted – M.Tech /Ph.D. Would those also be added to the CCMT in the future?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: In IITs these courses are sought out. In NITs, students may take up the integrated courses and then may not. The point is at this juncture, integrated courses are just coming up. Students may for example do a B.Tech +M.Tech course but may drop out after B.Tech and not continue any more. The information about these courses is not really available in depth and th demand for them is also not so high unless it’s from an IIT.
Under CCMT, some institutes are offering admissions to M.Tech/Ph.D courses – integrated but these are few. In MNIT, we are planning for such courses. We are in the process of compiling the information and then seeing the possibilities of offering them to students.
Careers60: Which are the most preferred branches and which are the least according to you?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: Most of the core branches are preferred like Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Electronics etc. some branches are not preferred but the core branches always have the demand and are most sought after. It again depends on the valid GATE scores, eligibility of the students etc.
Careers360: Any tips for Choice Filling? It is still a process that many students do not have an inkling about. Some lose a good seat in spite of a good score because of bad option filling. What should be the parameters when filling in the choices of courses and institutes?
Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary: We have put in guidelines in the brochure in a detailed manner. The students have to check the brochure before applying. We also are limited in this area as the final call lies with the student. We cannot comment on any of the institutes or the courses. They are part of CCMT 2014. So we have tried the next best thing- given detailed instructions, and enabled our system to take care of the choices.
After the students enter the registration details, a list is displayed with the choices available to the students for applying. It is to be noted that the choices are all dependent upon the candidate’s eligibility criteria. So it is advisable to check the eligibility before applying.
We also have a list of FAQs where we have tried addressing all the common doubts of the students.Click here to see the FAQs.
Our help lines are anyway there and students can mail us. We will list out all the choices available to the student . We also encourage students to talk to the concerned NIT to know about the prospects and this is best we can do. The student can talk to the Dean Academic Affairs there and know all details and clear the doubts.
Careers360 thanks Dr. Sandeep Chaudhary, Coordinator CCMT 2014 for sharing valuable inputs with us.
