With a great fan-fare and after keeping the CAT 2014 aspirants waiting for over 10 days from the date of CAT 2014 notification that appeared on July 27, 2014, CAT 2014 convening IIM Indore chose to open the Registration process on CAT 2014 website at 10 AM.
Dr Rohit Kapoor, IIM Indore faculty and convener of CAT 2014 might be expecting a higher number of registrations in CAT 2014 than CAT 2013 but out of the 56 days registration window which will continue till 11.59 PM on September 30, 2014, 4 days, that have already passed, show few registrations and even fewer applicants till now.
Hope for a higher number later
Initial days after opening the CAT 2014 registration on the CAT 2014 site have not seen any rush of aspirants. Even if they are going for free registration, many of them are not going for the next step of applying. It is therefore not necessary that the candidates going for CAT 2014 registration without paying any fee would also apply for CAT 2014. So there, Dr Kapoor will have to wait and watch.
Another key fact is that registration in CAT 2014 between the first day and the last day will have no difference as the self scheduling of CAT 2014 does no longer exist. Aspirants will be allotted the test date, session and centre by the testing agency on October 16, 2014 after 15 days from the last date for registration i.e. Sep 30, 2014.
Aspirants for CAT 2014 are of the view that early registration may not be much useful as the centres are not allotted on the first come first served basis as against CAT 2013 when the rush for early registration was more to secure the seat on the preferred date at the preferred test centre. It can be detrimental to the expected high registration and application data in the initial days, although Dr Kapoor could expect a higher number later.
CAT 2014 site states “Exam date and the shift (forenoon or afternoon) will be allocated for each registered candidate based on the city preference made at the time of application. Candidate cannot select shift or test date.” Hence the way it is going, the number of CAT 2014 applicants may increase after 15-20 days, till then it is expected to remain a lukewarm response.
Will More seats in IIMs bring higher number of CAT 2014 registrations?
The thought would be definitely be on these lines. But going by the past record, number of CAT registration has gone down tremendously and number of actual CAT test takers has also gone down from 2.76 lakhs in CAT 2008 to 1.72 lakhs in CAT 2013.
This dip in number is despite the fact that in 2011 six new IIMs started functioning. It may again be the expectation of CAT 2014 convener and all other IIMs and B schools alike to have a higher number of registrations for CAT 2014 with the announcement of 6 more new IIMs by the Government of India. The registration is also open for these proposed IIMs which are expected to commence functioning from the admission session 2015-16. Since the opening of Registration process on Aug 6, 2014, the two days that have passed by, have also not shown the encouraging results.
Will the ‘Aspirant friendly’ CAT 2014 improve the number of registrations?
Proposed CAT 2014 is acclaimed to be more aspirant friendly. Dr Rohit Kapoor, CAT 2014 convener is very much optimistic about its changed pattern. The time constraint of moving between the two sections has been removed, total time has been increased, and number of questions has been increased from 60 to 100 in CAT 2014. It means that more option of questions to choose from will be available for the test takers in CAT 2014 to score a high percentile.
It may surely contribute to increase the registration number by a few but may not touch the pristine glory of CAT registration number as we used to see earlier.
Shorter & weekend CAT 2014 testing window may be the number puller
CAT 2013 was followed by many controversies and issues of normalization of scores came up. It might have been due to longer testing window of 40 sessions in CAT 2013. The thought to shorten the testing window in CAT 2014 to 4 sessions is not without substance.
Now the candidates appearing for CAT 2014 do not have to go on tracking the days, dates and sessions out of 20 days to find the suitable testing time and date. All this will be taken care of, by the Testing Agency. The CAT 2014 sessions are on weekends only and this is a good change for the working professionals and other students who are unable to take leave to take CAT.
No fee to be paid for registration in CAT 2014
Since the payment of fee is to be made after completion of all the details in the application form aspirants fill up the registration form for free, get their ID and Password and think of proceeding further later. This is a big change in the process of registration due to which the number of CAT 2014 applicants may not increase in the first fortnight of registration period.
The situation was different till CAT 2013 when candidates had to either purchase the voucher from the Bank and were left with no alternative but to apply or if they chose to register online they had to pay the fee along with the registration process.
Now those candidates only who are serious and wish to apply for CAT 2014 need to pay the fee after filling up the details in the application form. This could be one of the reasons that Dr Kapoor needs to analyse due to which despite a good number of registrations actual applicants may be much less.
Registrations to CAT 2014 may cross 2 lakhs by Sep 30
CAT is the most favourite management entrance test and despite all the changes it is expected that the registration figure will go beyond 2 lakhs of aspirants by September 30, 2014. CAT 2014 aspirants are also advised to go for an early registration and application since you never know what technical problems may come up at any point of time. The piece of advice is “if you wish to apply for CAT 2014, it’s better to apply in early days” why! Because you may face more technical problems at the eleventh hour.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on CAT 2014
