CAT applicants are less by 20 % this year

Updated on: Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Chennai:Uncertainties in the job market and economic slowdown might caused the applicants to hold off this year from CAT 2009

CAT, the Common Admission Test used for entrance to the Indian Institutes of Management and other institutes, has seen a solid growth of about 20 per cent every year for the last few years. In 2006, 1.8 lakh applicants wrote the examination. In 2007, the figure was about 2.3 lakh.

If the trend had continued, many experts had predicted that the number of CAT applications would touch 3 lakh this year. This now looks unlikely. In fact, the IIMs had extended the application deadline from October 1, at which point Prometric had estimated only about 2 lakh registrants.

But for this year, till october 8, the number of applicants stood at 2.35 lakh. More applicants would have applied before the deadline expired on October 11. However, the total number of candidates still may not be much higher than last years total of 2.76 lakh.
'The final figures are still not available for this year. This year, Prometric (the testing company conducting CAT 2009) is processing the data, so they will give the final report,' said Satish Deodhar, a professor at IIM-Ahmedabad and convenor of CAT 2009.

'It's hard to say until we look at the details, but one possibility is that since the economic downturn is not over, many people in jobs may not want to give up their jobs and apply for an MBA this year,' said IIM-A director Samir Barua.

'A lot of people are hedging their bets this year. If they already have a job, they don't want to take a risk and rock the boat by going back to college this year,' agreed Jaideep Chowdhary, a spokesperson for leading CAT training institution T.I.M.E. 'It's a global trend. Applications have actually fallen in many leading B-schools. ISB [Indian School of Business, Hyderabad] applications are also down 20 per cent'

However, Dr. Barua dismissed concerns that CATs shift in format to a computer-based test this year could also be responsible. Anyone who wants to come study at the IIMs would not be put off by CAT going online. I doubt very much whether that could be a deterrent,â€ he said

CAT applicants are less by 20 % this year

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