Management at Ashoka: More Than Just a New Major

Ashoka University has introduced a new B.Sc. (Hons.) in Management, which will be available to students from the incoming Undergraduate Cohort of 2026 onwards. The degree will be housed under the Havells School of Management and Leadership, established following a ₹250 crore philanthropic grant announced in February 2025. The programme builds on Ashoka's existing entrepreneurship offerings, which have seen more than twelve hundred undergraduates enrol in over forty courses, with nearly one-fifth of the student body pursuing a minor or concentration in the field.  The programme will be offered through the university’s Department of Entrepreneurship with faculty including Professor Bibek Banerji, Head of the Department of Entrepreneurship, and Professor Priyank Narayan, founding director of the InfoEdge Centre for Entrepreneurship, among others.  According to the university, the degree is intended to provide "a pathway for young leaders who wish to combine curiosity with enterprise and develop the mindset to lead in dynamic contexts."

Alongside the new degree, however, come two policies that distinguish it from other undergraduate majors currently offered at Ashoka: a mandatory high-school mathematics requirement with no alternative pathway, and a post-admission selection process for students seeking to declare Management as their major.

A Break from the Gateway Course Model

A requirement for students pursuing the Management major is having studied Mathematics in Classes XI and XII. Unlike other quantitative disciplines at Ashoka, there is currently no alternative route for students without a school-level mathematics background.

By contrast, most existing quantitative majors — including Economics, Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics — follow a gateway course model based on taking the MAT1000: Calculus course. Students who did not study mathematics in school can instead enrol in this course in their first semester and, upon meeting department-specific grade requirements, become eligible to declare their majors.

The Management major does not offer an equivalent bridge pathway. Instead, high-school mathematics functions as a fixed prerequisite, making it the first undergraduate major at Ashoka where students cannot compensate for the absence of senior secondary mathematics through their academic performance at the university.

A New Selection Process After Admission

According to the university's published eligibility criteria, the Management major will have limited seats, and students "may have to undergo an additional selection process" when declaring their majors at the end of their third semester. 

While admission to Ashoka itself is competitive, major declarations have traditionally depended on completing prerequisite courses and meeting departmental grade requirements. The Management major departs from this framework by indicating that even students who meet these requirements may still have to undergo an additional selection process before being admitted to the programme.

The university has not yet publicly detailed how this additional selection process will operate, what criteria it will use, or how many seats will be available.

Questions About Liberal Arts Flexibility

One of the defining features of Ashoka's undergraduate curriculum has been the flexibility to explore disciplines before declaring a major at the end of the third semester. The gateway course system supports that approach by allowing students to overcome missing school-level prerequisites through university coursework.

The Management major complicates this in two ways: it requires students to have studied mathematics before entering university and introduces a capacity-based selection process after admission.

Whether these policies remain unique to the Management major or become a model for future professional schools remains to be seen. For now, Management is the only undergraduate major at Ashoka to combine a fixed school-level subject requirement with a separate selection process after admission.

[Edited by Antara Kulkarni and Avika Mantri]

[With inputs from Ananya Mahnot]