CAT 2011 Exams Dates Released

The dates of the Common Admission Test(CAT 2011 - CAT 2012) have been released by the IIMs. The test would be conducted online during a 20-day testing window between October 22, 2011 and November 18, 2011.

This 20 day window for CAT 2011 was released by IIM-K on 25th July. This year CAT 2011 has also introduced 3 new cities namely Dehradun, Jammu and Bhilai in the already existing list of 33 cities making it available in 36 cities this year.

There are also some changes in the test pattern; the CAT 2011 from this year will only have two sections instead of three. The first section will purely focus onQuantitative Ability & Data Interpretation while the second on Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning. With 70 mins time for each section, CAT 2011 will be a 140 mins test spanned over 2 sections of 30 questions each. Each section will have an on-screen countdown timer for 70 mins. Once the time ends for the first section, test will move to next section and will no longer be able to go back. Hence, this year CAT 2011 time format is more like a GRE format.

A 15-mins help guide or kind of tutorial will also be presented before the test begins. The total duration of the exam, including the tutorial would be two hours and 35 minutes.

The official practice test will be made available within days and this will help CAT 2011 aspirants take get the feeling of the test and get familiar with the new format of the test.

Now candidates will also be able to purchase CAT vouchers from 201 Axis Bank branches, an increase of 30 outlets. This was done to reduce the difficulties in purchasing CAT vouchers.

For a detailed information on CAT 2011 Announcement visit http://www.indiaeducation.net/Alerts/CAT-2011-Examination-Notification-07082011

CAT 2011 to be Conducted with Changed Format

This year, numerous changes have been made in the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2011 format.CAT is a common entrance test for admission into the 13 IIMs and other premier B-Schools in the country.

According to the sources, CAT 2011 will have the same number of questions, however, the exam will have two sections instead of three and extra five minutes will be allotted to students in order to attempt the test.

As per an official statement issued by Prometric, the testing agency and IIMs, CAT 2011 will have only two sections. The first section will mainly assess candidate’s quantitative ability and data interpretation, while the other will emphasize on verbal ability and logical reasoning.

Furthermore, the statement informed that the two sections will be applied in order of separate time limits. The exam duration will be 140 minutes and candidates will get 70 minutes to answer 30 questions within each section. Once the time limit ends for the first section, candidates will have to move to the second and will no longer be able to go back, concluded the statement.

In support of the changes made, Prof Janakiraman Moorthy, Convenor, CAT 2011 said that this is a move, which will make the exam more student-friendly. As there are many students who lose out on a seat as they would have failed to perform in one of the sections, he added.

An additional five minutes have also been added to the existing two-and half hours of the exam duration, which includes a 15-minute tutorial that will guide students through the process. Bhilai, Jammu and Dehradun have also been added to the existing 33 test locations of CAT Exam.

This year the CAT 2011 will be conducted between October 22 and November 18, 2011, which implies that there is no change in the number of testing days. Therefore, the number of days remains the same to be 20. However, check-in time for the exam has been reduced by half-an-hour from the previous two hours, which will help in starting the afternoon sessions at 3.15 pm.

Contact address: Indian Institute of Management New Delhi DelhiSource-updates.highereducationinindia.com

New IIMs planned to have a joint Admission process this year

The new Indian Institutes of Management, (IIMs) namely IIM Ranchi, IIM Rohtak and IIM Raipur, along with IIM Trichy have planned a joint admission process this year. An initiative by IIM Ranchi’s director MJ Xavier, the gesture will see through common group discussions and personal interviews of around 3,000 successful CAT candidates. Pagalguy spoke to MJ Xavier to find out why this exercise was mooted.

Why a joint admission process for the new IIMs?

I basically believe in collaboration rather than competition, which I had made clear when I took over as the Director of IIM Ranchi. Luckily my Chairman Mr. R C Bharghava too has similar views and has put it in the IIM Review Committee Report submitted to the Ministry of HRD. In principle, we want to collaborate in many more aspects than just admissions; that includes sharing of resources and common sourcing to gain cost efficiency. This will help us build more efficient institutions that would soon be able to measure up to global standards.

With regard to admissions, the Directors of the four new IIMs met in the Noida campus of IIM Lucknow on 18th January and decided to work together. Apart from gaining cost efficiency for the Institutes, it would save time and money of the students. When we can have a common admissions test, why can’t we agree to have a common GD/PI process? However the final selection by the individual institutes will be based on their own criteria.

Will the criteria for these admissions be different from the other older IIMs?

Though the PI Score will be common to all the four IIMs, the final selection by individual institutes will be based on their own criteria and weightage for different components, such as work experience, academic performance, extra curricular activities, CAT score, PI scores etc.

Professor Rameshan of IIM Rohtak has put out comprehensive criteria for shortlisting of candidates, which will be followed by those of IIM Raipur and IIM Trichy. We are using our own criteria for shortlisting candidates. Since IIM Ranchi would like to be known in the field of Analytics, we have given greater weightage to CAT score and consequently our CAT cut-off is higher than that of others. Average CAT score of our current batch is higher than that of IIMA as they look for many other aspects including consistent academic performance in Xth, XIIth and UG level. My belief is that people who have seen ups and downs in life would be better equipped to manage the turbulent business environment. So I am not averse to looking at candidates with a lot of variability – in terms of academics and CAT components.

Is there some criteria change in IIM Ranchi compared to the first year?

No. My mentor Institute – IIMC, has set the right tone for the institute by selecting students with high CAT score for the first batch. We will continue with the same.

Are you satisfied with the profile of the first batch of students? Do you prefer fewer engineers like IIML?

I am extremely happy with the profile of the first batch. I would not like to force diversity into the programme. We shall achieve it by offering various programmes. For example, we plan to offer a two year programme on Business Analytics that will attract students with specialisations in statistics, mathematics, econometrics, linguistics, psychometrics etc.

How will joint admissions be done practically? Will there be a common panel to handle the GDPI?

One of the IIMs will play the co-ordinator’s role each year. To start with, IIM Rohtak will be the nodal point for the GD/PI process this year. Individual institutes will send the list of shortlisted candidates for interview to the nodal institute which will consolidate and work out the interview schedules.

We plan to have four centres, namely Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. We have allotted responsibility to the centres as below.

Bangalore- 28th February to March 6th – IIM Ranchi

Mumbai – March 8th to 13th – IIM Trichy

Delhi – 15th to 22nd March- IIM Rohtak

Kolkata – 26th to 30th March-IIM Raipur

The co-ordinating institutes will arrange for the venue and panels for the GD and PI. However uniform criteria will be used at all the centres for assessing candidates. Apart from the four centers, IIM Ranchi, Rohtak and Raipur will have interviews in their headquarters on April 2nd.

Logically, should not the mentor colleges work on admissions with their respective partners?

Of course, yes. IIM Ranchi made this common GD/PI move only with the concurrence of IIMC and with the blessings of our Chairman Mr. R C Bhargava. Until we learn to get up and walk, we would continue to seek the support of our respective mentor institutions. We should be able to do that soon so that we can grow out to build our own individual identity and set benchmarks in line with the global standards.

Is the intake of students being increased?

Yes, It has been decided that IIM-Ranchi will admit 70 students in its postgraduate diploma in management (PGDM) programme for the 2011-13 session, while IIM Raipur and IIM Trichy will admit 60 students each and IIM Rohtak about 120 students.

Admission Criteria of IIM Rohtak for batch 2011-13

Indian Institute of Management Rohtak (IIM-Rohtak), which saw its inception in 2010, has declared its admission criteria for the students of 2011-13 batch. IIM Rohtak has informed that for the PGP 2011-13 batch, there will be an intake of around 120 to 130 students. The different components on the basis of which students are selected are: CAT 2010 scores, Personal Appearance consisting of GD and PI, Past Academic records and Work Experience of the candidates.

Even though, IIM Rohtak has not announced the GD-PI shortlist for admissions 2011, it has revealed its admissions criteria, on the basis of which the candidates will be short listed for the Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) rounds, and on the basis of which the Final Selected List will be prepared. The business-school will use the following criteria for shortlisting the candidates for the PA round, the candidate has to attain the cut-off for CAT 2010 scores and the marks of Class X, XII and Under Graduate.

In case of the General category candidates, the cut-off percentage to be obtained in Class X is 75, for Class XII it is 70 and for Under Graduate, it is 65. The cut-off CAT 2010 percentile for General Category candidate is an overall 90. The sectional cut offs are 85 percentile for Verbal Ability, 80 percentile for Quantitative Ability and 75 percentile for Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning.

Moreover, the weightage given to X, XII and UG marks are 8, 7 and 5 respectively. Based on differences in the average graduation marks of different subject streams, an additional weight of 5 is allotted to candidates in UG streams of arts, humanities, commerce, management and social sciences. A weightage of 10 is assigned to reported work experience of 12 months and above using intervals of experience in months such that 36 to 47 months of experience gets the highest weight while experience of 72 months and above is not considered for any weight.

Further, the remaining weight of 65 is assigned to CAT 2010 score in the following manner: Total Score 50, Verbal Section 10, Quantitative Section 5, and DI Section 0. While preparing the Final Selection List (FSL), the weightage given to CAT score, GD, PI and Work Experience will be 50, 20, 20 and 10 respectively.

India's 11th IIM is opened at Trichy today, PG programme intake from this year

The fourth day of the New Year 2011 witnessed another milestone on the journey of IIMs. The foundation stone of the 11th IIM, IIM Trichy, was laid by Union HRD Minister Mr. Kapil Sibal on Tuesday, 4th January 2011.

The two-year full time post-graduate programme is slated to start from this year. IIM Trichy will meanwhile open its doors with executive education programmes this academic year.

Mentored by IIM Bangalore, IIM Trichy will function temporarily at the National Institute of Technology campus. Around 200 acres of land within the Bharathidasan University campus in Mathur have already been earmarked for creating the necessary infrastructure for the upcoming IIM.

The year 2010 had witnessed the launch of IIM Raipur, IIM Rohtak and IIM Ranchi. All of these have already begun their full time PGP at their temporary campuses. IIM Raipur is being mentored by IIM Indore, IIM Rohtak is being mentored by IIM Lucknow and IIM Ranchi is being mentored by IIM Calcutta.

These new IIMs will see lot of activities post January 12, the day of CAT 2010 results declaration.

IIMs looking for more girl students

The Indian Institutes of Management Have been looking to rope in an increased number of girls student, particularly those from a non-engineering background, to get the more diversified variety on their rolls.

Directors of five IIMs from across the country, who met in Kolkata recently, felt the need to change the quantitative bias in the Common Admission Test (CAT) to draw in more students to their classrooms from diverse academic backgrounds.

Giving a wrap-up of the discussion, IIM-Calcutta Director Sekhar Chowdhury said the issues would be dealt with seriously though it was not yet certain whether these changes could take place from next year’s CAT.

“In many cases, despite efforts to get in students from other backgrounds, the number of engineering students has increased. The blame is on our admission process. We need to change how we admit students and how CAT is organised,” said IIM-Lucknow director Devi Singh.

IIM-Bangalore director Pankaj Chandra felt girl students found the CAT examination with its stress on mathematics a deterrent.

Statistics reveal that about 2 lakh students take the annual CAT examination for admission to 2,000 seats in the country’s ten IIMs.

Of them, the percentage of engineers gaining entry into the premier B-schools is over 90 per cent, while the percentage of female students is only 10-15 per cent taking all the IIMs together.

Globally, the men-women ratio in IIMs is close to 50:50. “Why can’t we have an identical or more or less equal representation in the classrooms ? After all, the classes should represent life,” said Sekhar Choudhury.

Eduniversal B-School Ranking 2010: IIM-Banglore is ranked number one B-school in India

Eduniversal has come out with its latest University and B-school ranking in India. The Eduniversal B-school ranking provides a universal perspective on higher education. It is a unique service providing students, professionals, HR executives and academic officers with a global panorama of the best educational opportunities.

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore is ranked number one b-school in India, followed by Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. These premier management institutes of India have been awarded with ‘5 Palms’—the highest recognition, accorded to "Universal Business Schools with major international influence." IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad also made it to the list of the best 100 B-schools around the world with IIM Bangalore securing 24th position and IIM Ahmedabad on 55th position.

Eduniversal awarded ‘4 Palms’—the second highest recognition in this category, to eight b-schools from India. The 4 Palms recognition is awarded to ‘Top Business Schools’ known internationally. IIT Delhi which was at number three last year shifted to number five in the four palms category with IIT Bombay taking its place.

University of Delhi-Faculty of Management Studies(FMS) which was at number six last year stepped upward securing fourth position this time.

S. No.	B-School	Dean’s Recommendation
1.	Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B)	453
2.	Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A)	377
3.	Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C)	300
4.	Indian School of Business (ISB)	188
5.	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay - Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management (SJMSM)	174
6.	University of Delhi-Faculty of Management Studies (FMS)	171
7.	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi Department of Management Studies	155
8.	Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIM-L)	153
9.	Management Development Institute (MDI)	138
10.	Xavier Labour Relations Institute XLRI Jamshedpur	125

Each Dean from the universities and schools on the list of 1,000 can vote to recommend the other establishments. Country par country, the 1,000 Deans or Directors of each establishment give their opinion concerning the schools in the selection.

This vote is converted into a recommendation rate that the student can use to evaluate each establishment and compare different establishments.