The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have announced the second phase of Common Admission Test (CAT) would be conducted on January 30 and 31. The CAT exam results, could be declared by the third week of February. Reports the Business Standard
Security Mechanism in place for CAT exam this year.
IIMs use biometrics to prevent CAT applicants from cheating, reports the Business Standard. CAT 2009 will be conducted between November 28 and December 7.
To avoid a repeat of the Common Admission Test (CAT) paper leak in 2003, the Indian Institutes of Management(IIMs), which conduct the exam usually, spend a tense few months to ensure there are no leaks and glitches. This time around, aided by technology and a professional examination conducting company, the IIMs are confident there will be no security breaches.
Prometric, the company that bagged the contract to conduct the computer-based examination this year has a security mechanism in place which will help the IIMs manage over 2 lakh applications received this year. Also being introduced is capturing of biometric information which will ensure that no fradulent motives like writing the exam twice or using a proxy candidate can be used.
It is learnt that despite the instructions given to students in the CAT bulletin, nearly 1,000 applications every year get rejected by the IIMs due to discrepancies in the forms of which a few of them are suspected to be deliberate.
“Till last year, there were cases where the photographs would not match or candidates would not attach their photographs while applying for hall ticket. Since there were chances of somebody else appearing as proxy for these candidates, the institute used to reject such cases. On an average, the institute used to come across 100-200 such cases involving photographs,” said a source.
The Common Admission Test (CAT) for entry into the IIMs and 150 other B-schools has not found many takers this year., reports the Economics Times. As per IIMs, the number of candidates registered for CAT has been around two lakh, even as online registration process that was earlier scheduled to close on October 1 has been extended to October 11. Last year, the number of CAT applicants was 2.76 lakh. While the number of CAT applicants has been rising 10% every year, the past three years saw a 20-25% rise in number of candidates.
For those MBA aspirants who were late to catch the CAT 2009 groovy-train, here is another chance! IIMs have announced on September 30 today that they will be extending the sale of CAT vouchers up till October 8, and online registration till October 11. That’s a cool 10 more days!
Reasoning that many bank holidays may hamper the last minute rush of CAT aspirants, IIMs said, “In view of a series of bank holidays that may have inconvenienced some candidates, IIMs and Prometric have extended the sale of CAT 2009 vouchers to 8 October 2009.”
Online registration for CAT 2009, which began on Wednesday, 9 September 2009, will now be open till October 11. Earlier it was supposed to end on Thursday, 1 October 2009. “Candidates will have until 11 October 2009 to complete their online registration and scheduling. The edit feature will also be available until 11 October 2009,” said IIMs on their official website CATIIM.in.
CAT 2009 will be held in a window of 10 days, starting from Saturday, November 28 to Monday December 7, 2009. The test will be held in two slots, Session 1, the morning session will be from 10 AM to 12.30 PM.
Source : Economics Times
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