Prof Ashish K Bhattacharyya, chairman of admissions, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and spokesperson of CAT Group, while confirming this development with MBAUniverse.com said, "IIMs are in process to conduct CAT as an online test from year 2009."
When asked the rationale behind this move, Dr Bhattacharyya said, "The CAT applicants are increasing year by year. There is lot of efforts and time required in conducting the exam in areas like application processing, evaluation etc. With the help of technology, we can save this effort and a lot of time also." Prof Bhattacharyya also said that this step will be beneficial for all the CAT takers as it will be easy to handle.
Dr S P Parashar, Director, IIM-Indore also confirmed the move with MBAUniverse.com. Said Dr Parashar, "We are in the process of making the CAT exam as an online test. We have issued the documents to some of the companies who have experience in this area."
Will this move make CAT exams similar to the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) test held by US based Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Dr Parashar agrees. Says Dr Parashar, "With the online test, CAT will be similar to the GMAT test in its process." "This will be definitely beneficial for the students as they can appear in the exam according to their suitability rather than a particular day", added Dr Parashar.
In this regard, IIMs have invited several companies with expertise in the domain to offer their solutions. Said Dr Parashar, "We have issued documents to some companies who will make their presentation."
Prof Bhattacharyya too confirmed the same. "We are inviting some of the companies which have capability in this domain. Then the steps will be taken for conducting the exam which will include the application process, evaluation criteria etc."
