On Monday, September 19, 2011, IIMs declared that the registration to CAT 2011 has been extended by five days. With this announcement the MBA education community is excited as with this extension, combined with the entry of FMS Delhi, MICA, DMS of IITs, will lead to higher number of CAT takers this year, which will make the entrance exam more challenging for the test takers.
The total number of registrations received in CAT 2010 was 2.06 lakh candidates. The CAT registrations have witnessed, since the past few years, a continuous down slide. The number of registrations is most likely to witness a change this year.
It is being widely believed by experts that owing to the scrapping of JMET and FMS entrance exams, the aspirants who prepared solely for these MBA entrance exams will have to go the CAT way this year to join their preferred B-schools.
Till now, every year, approximately 45,000 candidates used to take FMS entrance exam every year. The number of test takers for JMET entrance exam for the IITs ranged from 30,000 to 40,000.
Clubbing these numbers of candidates, we can presume that the rise can be anything from 50,000 to 80,000. Though there may be some common candidates who would have taken all the MBA entrance exams, but we cannot rule out the possibility of candidates who took FMS or JMET exams exclusively.
Directors’ Speak
The Directors of the top B-schools also believe that owing to the entry of FMS and IITs, the number of registrations will see a rise.
Dr. Harivansh Chaturvedi, Director, BIMTECH said, “As a result of the inclusion of the IITs and FMS Delhi, the number of test takers will increase, as the aspirants of these B-schools too will register for CAT 2011.”
Sharing a similar opinion, Dr. J K Das, Director FORE School of Management mentioned, “With the announced discontinuation of IIT exam for management, and the discontinuation of FMS entrance test, some other institutes may also announce discontinuation of their entrance test in favor of CAT. Thus, as a result this year there may actually be an increase in CAT registration.”
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more on CAT 2011.
