IIMs Planning Changes in CAT Pattern

With students from engineering background dominating management programmes in IIMs, the premier B-schools are planning some changes in the Common Admission Test to ensure a broad-based representation.

"Efforts are on to have a relook at the Common Admission Test (CAT)...some changes that will be helpful for people from other discipline," said CAT 2012 convenor and professor at IIM Kozhikode SSS Kumar.

He, however, refused to divulge details saying the plan is still at the drawing board stage and deliberations are underway. Plans are still at the drawing board stage and deliberations are underway.

Talking to reporters, he said over 67 percent (over 1.44 lakh) of the candidates appearing for the CAT this year are from engineering discipline. Total numbers of candidates registered for CAT are 2,14,068.

IIM Kozhikode Director Debashis Chatterjee said the aim is to have a broad-based talent of human pool across disciplines and the best minds.

Managing director of Prometric India, Soumitra Roy, which is partnering with IIM's in holding the test, end of today over 36,000 candidates would have appeared for the test, being held in a staggered manner till 6 November.

The registration this year for the CAT test has also thrown in some interesting trend. Close to 17,000 students appearing this year have come with two to three year experience. Percentages of candidates coming from agriculture and architecture background have also increased.

However, candidates appearing from Humanities stream have dropped from 3,780 last year to 3,404 this year. There are 486 doctors sitting for the CAT this year as compared to 566.

The category-wise registration also reveals a notable participation from non-creamy OBC category which is 17.3 percent, SC at five percent and ST at 7.4 percent.

Maharashtra has the highest number of registered candidates at 31,040 followed by Uttar Pradesh at 25, 270 and Delhi at 21,507. However, the figures are based on a candidate's residing address, Kumar said.

Asked about some disruption in a centre during the test, Roy said they have a robust infrastructure in place to identify and resolve issues as they surface causing minimum inconvenience to the candidates.

Source: PTI

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