JMET to go, IITs to use only CAT score for admission

Updated on: Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Admission to the management courses of the IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) will no longer require Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET) scores. It was recently announced that JMET would be scrapped and the IITs would accept only the CAT scores.

This move comes closely after the statement by the All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman, S.S. Mantha that there should be only one entrance exam for all MBA aspirants. While the HRD ministry, in a press release, said that it would not be possible to have one exam for all management programmes, this move by the IITs is expected to ease pressure on students, say academics.

For the last four years, the IITs were accepting both the CAT and JMET scores. “There was a large number of students who took both the examinations. There is very little difference between the pattern of the two examinations, as both focus on assessing the aptitude of students,” says Prof. L.S. Ganesh, Department of Management Studies, IIT-Madras.

The quantitative section of the JMET is, however, considered to be more aligned to mathematics. “It is a myth that the JMET is taken only by engineering graduates. IITs require the applicant to have completed four years of any graduation programme,” said Mr. Ganesh. The IITs will continue to lay emphasis on the section-wise score of applicants, rather than the percentile scores. “Even a small difference of 0.25 marks in every section will make a difference in the selection process, which is not effectively reflected in the percentile scores,” says Mr. Ganesh.

JMET to go, IITs to use only CAT score for admission

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