MCA Courses in India - Top Colleges, AIMCET and Career Opportunities

MCA (Master of Computer Applications) is a 3 year post graduate program offered by Universities in India. The MCA course is a very good option for those who want to pursue a career in software. MCA courses offer very good job opportunities for graduates in Multinational as well as other software firms with an attractive pay packet.

Eligibility for admission to an MCA Course : Most of the Colleges/Institutes offering MCA course needs the candidates to be a graduate in any stream with Mathematics as a subject at the plus two level.


Admission procedure for MCA: Generally, the students has to take an entrance test for admission to an MCA program. In some institutes like IMT, Ghaziabad the candidates has to go through the process of a group discussion and an interview for getting admission. Selection will be based on the performance of the student in the written entrance test/interview/group discussion.

Different Universities conduct Entrance tests separately for MCA. The MCA entrance examinations are generally based on Mathematics and reasoning. Most of these tests are purely objective in nature. The test is generally of 2-3 hours duration. Some tests will have the system of negative marking for wrong answers.

The number of seats for the MCA Programme is very limited in all the Universities. Different colleges have different syllabi for the MCA Entrance, hence it is difficult to have an integrated approach while preparing for it. The aspirants needs to be good at Mathematics (some will be upto B.Sc level) as most of the MCA entrance papers will have questions from Mathematics and Statistics. A knowledge of computers will be also beneficial.

All India MCA Common Entrance Test (AIMCET): There is an All India MCA Common Entrance Test organized by IIT, Roorkee. AIMCET is intended for admission on an all India basis or have seats earmarked for candidates from other states. Certain state governments (for state quota seats) and institutes (for management quota seats) have also indicated that admission to their MCA programmes will be based on the AIMCET Score.


Career Opportunities for an MCA graduate: As today is an age of computers, a candidate with an MCA degree will have great job opportunities in top level IT companies and consultancy firms like TCS, Wipro, IBM, Oracle etc. They will have opportunities in large corporations having an in-house systems department. An MCA graduate can work for any IT company big or small as a system developer and various other roles.

MCA Specializations: There are many fields or areas that an MCA student can specialize in the final semester or the last year of his course. Some of these areas are :

* Systems Management
* Systems Development
* Systems Engineering
* Application Software
* Internet
* Management Information Systems (MIS)
* Software Development
* Troubleshooting
* Hardware Technology
* Networking

Other related Courses: Some Institutes in India provide various Post Graduate Diploma Programs in Computer Applications like PGDCA, PGDIT etc which are considered equivalent to an MCA and offer good placement opportunities.

There are many Govt. recognised colleges and institutes offering MCA programs. Top 10 institutes, eligibility criteria and the number of seats are listed below:

Pune University
Delhi University
J. N. U., New Delhi
R.E.C. Trichy
MNNIT, Allahabad
B.H.U.
IIT Roorkee
ICSE Indore
V.J.T.I., Mumbai
Jalgaon University

Other Reputed Institutes/Universities/Colleges offering MCA program: In addition to the top ten, there are various other institutes of reputation offering MCA course. Some of them are listed below:

* PSG Coimbatore
* REC Surathkal
* REC Warangal
* REC Rourkela
* Vellore Engineering College
* Hyderabad Central University
* Thapar Institute
* Punjab University
* BITS Mesra
* RIT Jamshedpur
* Goa University
* Anna University
* H.P.Shimla University
* Indraprastha University
* Kurukshetra University
* Madurai Kamaraj University
* Pondicherry Central University
* Cochin University
* Nagpur University
* Gujarat MCA
* Andhra MCA
* Mangalore University
* University of Rajasthan
* GNDU Amritsar