E-Paper
8,000 students appear for CAT in Chandigarh tricity
Around 2 lakh students from across the country appeared in the entrance exam, which was conducted by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM, Bangalore), for admissions to India’s top management institutes. While there was just one test centre in Chandigarh, there were five in Mohali and six within a 60-km radius of the city.
Around 8,000 students appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT), which was held at three different time-slots in and around the tricity, on Sunday.
Around 2 lakh students from across the country appeared in the entrance exam, which was conducted by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM, Bangalore), for admissions to India’s top management institutes. While there was just one test centre in Chandigarh, there were five in Mohali and six within a 60-km radius of the city.
Students’ mathematics, English and data interpretation and reasoning ability were tested in the exam. Students found verbal ability and mathematics sections to be moderately difficult, and data interpretation and logical reasoning to be the toughest.
Sukhleen Kaur, who has pursued BCom from Goswami Ganesh Dutta Sanatan Dharma College, Chandigarh, said, “The paper was along expected lines in terms of difficulty. Taking mock tests paid off.”
Another student, Rachit, who is in the final year of engineering, said, “I felt the overall exam was a bit lengthy. I did well in the verbal section, I am hoping for higher accuracy to secure an IIM call.”
The result of the test is expected to be declared in the second week of January. In the second phase, after the written test results are announced, students go through an essay and interview stage for final selection.
Hirdesh Madan, the co-founder of CAT preparatory institute, said, “The exam was conducted in three slots with uniformity in style, subject areas and overall difficulty level. Over the last three years, we have seen that CAT is becoming standardised.”
There are 20 IIMs in the country with around 5,000 seats. There are around 6,000 more seats in institutions such as Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Management Development Institute (MDI), Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Information Management Technology (IMT), S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) and University Business School Panjab University.
In the region, IIM Sirmaur and IIM Amritsar, and IIM Jammu top the charts as most coveted colleges, accepting CAT scores. The University Business School (UBS) of Panjab University is also one of the sought-after colleges, and its CAT cut-off is expected to be around 90 percentile.
