CAT 2012 Notification@ Number of B-schools registered for CAT 2012 goes down

Indian Institutes of Management have come out with the CAT 2012 notification and has also declared the names of management institutes who are going to accept the CAT scores during 2012.  The total number of B-schools registered for accepting CAT score in 2012 has come down to 106 from 136 in 2011. The year 2011 had already witnessed a drop in the number of institutes registered in comparison to 2010 when the number of B-schools registered to accept CAT scores was 147.

However, according to the CAT convenor for CAT 2012, Prof. SSS Kumar of IIM Kozhikode, “it would not be justified to come to any kind of conclusion regarding the numbers of institutes registered under CAT 2012 at this point of time as it is still under process. Even though the closing date of the registration is over, there are still institutes such as IITs for which some exemptions have been done.”

While, there were 16 national institutes accepting CAT score during 2011, this year only 11 national institutes have registered to accept CAT scores. Some of the prominent national names which do not figure in this year’s list of institutes include Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB); University School of Management, Kurukshetra University; The Business School, University of Jammu; University Business School, Punjab University; University of Lucknow; Institute of Management Science and University of Calcutta, Department of Commerce, West Bengal. Besides, there are only 95 private institutes which have so far registered under CAT 2012 as of today.

This drop in the number of institutes registered for CAT scores can also be seen in the context of the reduction in the number of AICTE approved PGDM institutes over last 2-3 years. While there were over 400 PGDM institutes two years back, the number has shrunk to 288 as in July 2012.

“There is a widespread perception that CAT entrance examination is not the ideal test and there is a need of a more multi-faceted screening test for a student. Having the experience of close to 16-17 years in interviewing students for the admission into IIM Ahmedabad, I felt that in several cases where students slip into a good B-school on the basis of the CAT score may not be the ideal management candidate. In fact, we at IMT now also accept GMAT scores,” said the Director of IMT Ghaziabad, Dr. Bibek Banerjee.

Moreover, “Institutes are gradually realising that there is no additional advantage in registering with CAT officially,” said Dr Jitendra K Das of Fore School of Management. “The veracity of CAT score can be checked online if the candidate’s name and registration number is available to any institute. Therefore, apart from nominal advantage of being mentioned on CAT’s official website and the permission to advertise that the B-school is registered with CAT, there is no significant advantage of this,” he added.

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