CAT is the gateway to the cream of management institutes in India, the IIMs. CAT, or the Common Admission Test, is an aptitude test; it is the most popular test among prospective management students because it is accepted by the best institutes. The CAT is one of the world's most demanding entrance examinations for any graduate institute.
CAT MBA entrance exam is used as criteria to shortlist applicants for admissions to the six IIMs-IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore, and IIM Kozhikode. Common Admission Test is one of the largest MBA entrance exams conducted in India, anually. The CAT score is also accepted by more than 75 non-IIM institutes across India, some of which are as reputed as the IIMs.
Eligibility for the postgraduate programmes in management at all IIMs and to appear for IIM-CAT is at least a three-year bachelor's degree in any discipline from a recognised university with 50% Marks in graduation. Indian Institute of Management (IIMs), the premier business-schools of the country (and counted among the best in the world) conduct this test for selecting potential students for the next round of admission process (comprising of a personal interview and a group discussion) for their MBA and Fellow-ship programmes.
Those appearing in the final year examination of graduation are also eligible to appear in Common Admission Test. Some People feel that Common Admission Test (CAT) is more of a rejection procedure than a selection process.It rejects those who can’t make their minds work at break neck speed for two and a half hours non-stop.
CAT Exam covers questions in five broad areas such as verbal ability and reasoning, reading comprehension, quantitative skills, data interpretation and logical reasoning.
The number of questions asked in Common Admission Test vary every year and a typical CAT question paper can have anywhere between 75 and 150 questions. Common Admission Test evaluates the candidate's presence of mind and his ability to perform under pressure. Announcement of the procedure for appearing in the Common Admission Test is made in leading newspapers in August every year for admission to the programme beginning in the second half of June of the following year. The test will be conducted during November. CAT 2007 Notification for admission to 2008 session has been announced.
Usually, CAT tests three of your abilities: - Problem Solving- Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning- Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension. The CAT examination demands competency across all sections of the paper. So, the number of sections in the test doesn’t really matter; what matters is whether you are competitive and have answered questions in all the sections.
All the questions are of multiple-choice nature with four/five alternate answer choices and the candidate has to choose the best answer for each of the questions and mark it on a special Optical Reader answer sheet. Differential marks are allotted to the questions. The test comprises 150 to 200 objective type questions and is usually divided into three to four sections. The number of questions in the test has been coming down steadily, from nearly 200 in the 1990s to 90 in 2005 and just 75 in 2006.
Very little strategy could be applied in selecting the easiest questions. Cut that down and don't waste time on questions which are lengthy. One misconception is that you need to solve the whole Question Paper - not at all. If you can solve 38 to 40 per cent of the questions, CORRECTLY, you are through.
Not an Engineer - No Problems you don’t need to be an Engineer to get into an IIM. In fact being a non-engineer may help in the Interview part. IIMs encourage diversity. And being a non-engineer you may be compared with other non-engineers. Rather than with engineers who may be compared with IITians.
CAT 2007 - Important Dates for work.
Issue of CAT Bulletins by UTI Bank/Vijaya Bank STARTS JULY 16, 2007
Issue of CAT Bulletins by UTI Bank/Vijaya Bank ENDS AUGUST 16, 2007
Issue of CAT Bulletins by IIMs ENDS AUGUST 20, 2007
Dispatch dates for Admit Cards 15th October, 2007
Date after which IIM should be contacted (in case of non receipt of Admit Card) 02rd November, 2007
Last date for receipt of completed CAT 2007 Application Forms 08th September, 2007
Common Admission Test 2007 Date 18th November 2007
Call for interview sent by January, 2008
Last Date for receipt of completed applications for Admission to IIMs January, 2008
Interview Schedule February – March, 2008
CAT 2007 Eligibility The candidate must hold a Bachelor’s Degree, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA [45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC)/ Scheduled Tribe (ST) or Persons with Disability (PWD) category], of any of the Universities incorporated by an act of the central or state legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University under section 3 of UGC Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification recognized by the Ministry of HRD, Government of India. The Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent qualification obtained by the candidate must entail a minimum of three years of education after completing higher secondary schooling (10+2) or equivalent. The basis of computing the percentage obtained by the candidate in the bachelor’s degree would be based on the practice followed by the university/ institution from where the candidate has obtained the degree. In case of the candidates being awarded grades/CGPA instead of marks, the equivalence would be based on the equivalence certified by the university/ institution from where they have obtained bachelor's degree. In case the university/ institution does not have any scheme for converting CGPA into equivalent marks, the equivalence would be established by the IIMs by dividing obtained CGPA with the maximum possible CGPA and multiplying the resultant with 100.
IIM Admission Process
Candidates are short listed for the interview on the basis of their performance in the CAT, scholastic achievement and relevant work experience. At this stage, the short listed candidates are sent application forms to formally apply to the Post Graduate Program (PGP). Once the formal applications are received, candidates are informed of the interview schedule. Interviews are conducted at Bangalore, Calcutta, Mumbai, and New Delhi during the second half of March.
Final selection is based on performance in CAT, scholastic achievement, work experience, and performance in the group discussion, summary of group discussion and interview, and three letters of reference.
Do Check out my next posting on "How to Crack the CAT ?"
