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LATEST
NEWS |
| 26th
September 2010 / Times of India / Mumbai Edition |
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 CAT registration deadline extended
With Queues Dwindling, Candidates Given Time Till October 7 To Sign Up
Mumbai: The Common Admission Test (CAT), the starting point that leads an MBA aspirant to the Indian Institutes of Management, has probably hit a rough patch.
The authorities have, for the first time, extended the registration deadline for the entrance test for business education by a week, probably to convince more candidates to queue up for the exam. The earlier deadline of September 30 has now been pushed back to October 7.
The number of people applying for CAT has been dipping. When the IIMs conducted the paper-pencil test themselves, they looked at restricting the number of examinees. But now that it has been outsourced, the revenue from CAT is suddenly important, said an IIM faculty ember. For years, the entrance test has been the IIMs golden goose; in 2007- 08, the blue-chip B-schools of the country raked in Rs 2.98 core just by conducting Common Admission Test.
But in 2009, after 33 years, the test graduated from being a paper-pencil one and that, experts said, left out a large number of aspirants from smaller corners of the country that were not comfortable with computer-based exams. This year again, the number of cities where test centres have been set up, has fallen.
Has that affected the number of those interested in taking the test Prometric, the American company conducting the computer based test for the IIMs, said in a press note, The decision to extend the registration period was undertaken in order to provide candidates with additional opportunity to register and at the request of some candidates who required a longer registration period.
CAT convener Humans Ray, however, said pushing back the last date for the registration for CAT had nothing to do with the plummeting registration numbers. I don’t have the data on how many students have registered for CAT-2010 but those wanting to take the test would have done so by now. If someone has decided not to take the test, he/she would not sign up now.
However, Prometric, which earns according to the number of candidates who register, is probably looking at those who are in two minds about a career in business administration and trying to convince them to take it up in the last minute. Arks Srinivas, director of TIME (Kolkata), a coaching academy, asked, what other reason should there be for pushing back the dates to sell the vouchers as well
hemali.chhapia@timesgroup.com
NO LONGER THE B-SCHOOL KING? |
Year |
Applications Sold (in lakh) |
CAT Examinees |
2006-'07 |
1.84 |
1.58 |
2007-'08 |
2.28 |
1.77 |
2008-'09 |
2.70 |
2.09 |
2009-'10 |
2.40 |
2.17 |
| (Source: IIMs) |
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