CAT Admissions and Other Details.

The CAT, otherwise commonly known as the common admission test is conducted by the IIMs or the Indian institutes of management for admissions into their post graduate management programs. The Indian institutes of management have been established in 10 places, Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Indore, Rohtak, shilling, Raipur and Trichy. These premier institutes set their own cut off marks and shortlist people based on their performance in the common admission test. There are other colleges that fall under grade-B which also shortlist students into their schools based on CAT admission test scores. For example, Bharathidasan institute of management in Trichy, TAPMI in Karnataka, and K.J. Somaiya in Mumbai and MDI in Gurgaon take in students on the basis of their CAT scores.

CAT application forms have already been released for this year, and they can be bought at selected Axis Bank branches, the details of which are provided in the official website of CAT, www.catiim.ac.in. The test is conducted in all major cities in various centers, the details of which will be provided to you during your application process. Cat admission form should be completed and submitted online. All communications from the IIMs regarding CAT admissions are done online. Cat admission forms have to be filled very carefully as the information would remain in their database and used during post-test admission processes. CAT scores, two months after the test are released online. The print out of the score card can be submitted to the institutes along with your CAT registration number.

Similar to CAT, another important exam to take note of is the MAT, or the management aptitude test. This test is conducted four times a year and the scores scored by the applicant are released to a variety of colleges which accept MAT scores. Alliance University in Bangalore, amity in greater Noida, and IILM institute for higher education in Gurgaon are some of the top colleges that enroll students based on their marks obtained in the MAT exam. Mat scores are not to be compared with other test marks because, by design, MAT is not intended to be parallel to any other tests offered by other testing agencies. After a month of taking the test, a score report is released to the student. Each score report contains six scores: language comprehension, mathematical skills, data analysis and sufficiency, intelligence and critical reasoning, composite score and Indian and global environment. These scores are reported on scales ranging from 0 to 100. Scores below 20 or above 80 are rare. The score scales for the first four sections and the composite scores are based on the performance of applicants who took the test in 1996. They were defined in a way that a score of 50 in a section and about 500 on composite scale represent the average performance of the group.

Thus, the CAT and MAT exams are tests that ought to be taken seriously by any management aspirant who wants to make it to a good business school.