The Hindu : Front Page : Management aspirants set for CAT

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 18, 2007
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Management aspirants set for CAT

Staff Reporter

2.3 lakh candidates to take the test today for 1,600 seats in seven IIMs

The number of questions were reduced from
90 to 75 last year
Consistent academic record crucial to get
into IIMB

BANGALORE: For the 2.3 lakh candidates registered for the Common Admission Test (CAT), the wait is finally over. Joining their fellow management seat aspirants from the rest of India, thousands of candidates will appear for the test in the 20 centres across Bangalore on Sunday.

The CAT scores will decide who gets into the seven Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong, besides a hundred other B-schools of repute.

With the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, taking the first pro-active step towards transparency and declaring its evaluation process beforehand, there has been some hype about the CAT procedures this year. But as far as the students are concerned, it is all about putting their best foot forward in this multiple-choice race against time. The candidates’ priority will be to get enough scores to help them get through to the top three IIMs —Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata.

In all, about 1,600 postgraduate diploma in management seats will be on offer in the seven IIMs.

This year, students can expect 120 additional seats at the institute in Bangalore and the newly launched Shillong institute. Last year, about 1.8 lakh students took the CAT.

Surprise element

Despite months of preparation in coaching classes, candidates are bound to be surprised by CAT 2007. Last year, the CAT pattern was changed to reduce the number of questions from 90 to 75.

On the eve of the test, IIMB had some success stories to tell on the placements front: all its first year students won summer internship placements with major companies such as Goldman Sachs and Blackstone Group. Beating all previous IIM records, the batch of 249 students earned internships within four days.

“One of the recent trends with IIM-B is for companies to focus on these internships which they use as a platform to judge these students and make them pre-placement offers,” said Sourav Mukherjee, placement chairperson.

On IIMB’s decision to go public with the admission procedure, Mr. Mukherjee said the process was an integrated approach.

Dispelling the myth that IIM-B insists on work experience, he said around 40 first year students were freshers.

“Only 20 per cent of our evaluation is based on the CAT score.

“What actually pays off here is consistency in academic records,” he added.

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