How to Conduct Elective Course Bidding across Multiple Graduate Programmes

The short answer: to run elective course bidding across multiple graduate programmes, split the process into stages. In the first round, allocate seats within a quota for each programme so that no cohort can outbid another. In the second round, remove the quotas and let everyone bid for the seats that remain. Feed the results straight into section planning and the timetable. IIM Bangalore runs cross-programme bidding this way on Registro.

This guide covers why multi-programme bidding is harder than it looks, how the two-round model works, and what programme offices should prepare before the first round opens.

Why are elective registrations so hard to manage?

Top-ranked business schools worldwide offer 50 or more electives every term, letting students specialise in marketing, brand management, business communication and negotiation, technology entrepreneurship, information systems, finance and investing, operations, strategy, analytics and more.

The difficulty is not the number of courses. It is the number of seats. Electives have limited capacity, and the most popular ones are often taught by well-known faculty or industry leaders. In these cases, a single section of an elective may hold only 5% to 10% of a yearly MBA or law school batch. Students have to make informed choices, balancing historical demand against their career goals, and the programme office has to make sure the outcome is fair.

Which programmes typically take part?

At premier business schools in India, two groups of programmes usually compete for the same pool of electives:

1. The two-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP/MBA), with enrolments ranging from 200 to 1,000 students per batch.
2. Executive MBA and specialised master's programmes, which serve working professionals and students seeking advanced management skills.

Many schools also admit international exchange students each term, who need access to the same electives. At IIM Bangalore, degree students and exchange students bid in the same system, with cross-programme seat sharing handled automatically. Read the IIM Bangalore case study.

How does auction-based elective bidding work?

Business and law schools use several approaches to elective registration. The most common at premier institutions is the auction-based method, where students use bidding points. (For a comparison of bidding with FCFS and ranked-preference methods, see what is elective course bidding.)

Two groups are involved:

• The programme office administration, which designs the rules and manages the process.
• Students, who take part in the bidding to secure their preferred courses.

Students receive a budget of bid currency or points. The programme office announces the timing and duration of each round, and students log into the course bidding portal to bid for their preferred electives.

What goes wrong with manual bidding?

Run manually, elective bidding can take several weeks from start to finish. Most of that time is not the bidding itself. It is what comes after: validating bid results, correcting errors and answering a steady stream of student queries about how seats were allocated. Students who cannot see how the outcome was reached tend to question it, and the programme office spends the start of term defending results instead of planning classes.

With Registro's open auction method, the live bidding window can be completed in a single day, in roughly two hours, and the duration can be adjusted to suit the institution. Because results are immediate, the administration can plan class delivery straight away.

How do you run bidding across multiple programmes?

When students from different programmes bid for the same electives, one programme's students may have larger point pools, or simply outnumber the others. Without safeguards, a smaller programme can be shut out of the courses it needs. IIM Bangalore solved this by dividing the process into stages.

Round one: bid within programme quotas

The Registro platform allocates elective seats within quotas assigned to each graduate programme. This guarantees each programme fair access to seats and prevents students with larger bid-point pools from outbidding everyone else.

Round two: open the remaining seats to everyone

Once the first round closes, the quota is removed. All participants can bid for the seats that remain, so every section is filled as fully as possible.

Why this helps faculty planning too

Cross-programme bidding lets students from different programmes fill courses that would otherwise run with low numbers. That makes better use of faculty time, and it means fewer electives are cancelled for lack of demand.

How do you avoid undersubscribed electives?

On average, around 15% of electives are undersubscribed at business schools with cohorts of 400 or more MBA students. Undersubscribed courses may be dropped, which disappoints the students who wanted them and wastes the faculty preparation already done.

The fix is to gather demand data before the bidding round. A short demand survey tells the programme office which electives are likely to be over- or undersubscribed, so it can add sections, cap capacity or rethink the offering in advance. Combining that demand data with faculty availability across time slots produces a timetable where students can register for their preferred electives without clashes.

NMIMS Mumbai runs an automated elective demand survey and course clash matrix ahead of every bidding cycle, and detects timetable conflicts at the point of bidding rather than after allocation. Read the NMIMS case study.

What does this look like at scale?

Multi-programme bidding is not only a challenge for large IIMs. OP Jindal Global University runs multi-term bidding across more than 10 schools and 45 programmes, each with its own credit policies, seat-sharing rules and concentration requirements. On Registro, more than 5,000 students bid in a single registration window, manual effort for programme offices fell by 97% and student queries during registration fell by 99%. Read the OPJGU case study.

"IIMB is extremely satisfied with the efficient support being provided by the EDTEX team during the Course Bidding rounds and while scheduling the term Timetable." Prof. Abhoy K. Ojha, Dean Programmes (2019), IIM Bangalore

What does the programme office gain?

• Course demand data: plan which courses need multiple sections, and which low-demand courses to drop or merge.
• Better electives over time: improve the elective portfolio based on what students actually choose.
• Speed: final elective registration reports are generated within minutes of the round closing.
• Fewer disputes: transparent rules and live demand mean far fewer questions about the outcome.

Checklist: before you open a multi-programme bidding round

1. Agree seat quotas per programme for round one, and publish them.
2. Confirm bid-point budgets for each programme, and whether unspent points carry over.
3. Run a demand survey and build a course clash matrix.
4. Load credit rules, prerequisites and concentration requirements into the system.
5. Decide the timing of round two, Add/Drop and waitlist movement.
6. Brief students with a short guide and a practice round.

Frequently asked questions

What is cross-programme course bidding?

Cross-programme course bidding lets students from different degree programmes, such as the PGP, executive MBA and exchange programmes, bid for the same electives within one system, with rules that keep the allocation fair between programmes.

How do you stop one programme outbidding another?

Allocate seats within programme quotas in the first round, then remove the quotas in a second round so any remaining seats are filled.

How long does an automated bidding round take?

The live bidding window can be completed in a single day, often in about two hours, and final registration reports are available within minutes of it closing.

Does course bidding connect to the timetable?

It should. When bidding outcomes feed directly into timetable generation, as at IIM Bangalore and IIM Kozhikode, clashes are resolved before the timetable is published rather than after.

Related reading

• What is elective course bidding?
• Establishing an elective course bidding policy
• What elective demand surveys reveal
• Registro Course Bidding

To discuss designing an elective bidding process for your institution, write to us at registro@edtex.in or request a demo.