By Ranjan K Baruah
Many students aspire to join business schools in India or abroad because passing out from a reputed business school means getting a sustainable job. Jobs after management degree are always rewarding and exciting. There are many business schools in India which offer courses. Indian Institute of Management is the leading institute when it comes to management or business. To get admission in different IIMs one must clear CAT. In today’s edition, we are publishing information related to CAT 2019.
Common Admission Test (CAT) is conducted by IIMs for its admission to Post Graduate Programmes and Fellow Programmes. Aspirants need to appear for the Common Admission Test. Apart from the IIMs, various other Management Institutes use the CAT score for short listing the candidates. CAT is conducted once in a year usually in October-November. Aspirants may apply before September 18.
CAT 2019 will be conducted on November 24 in two sessions. It will be conducted in test centres spread across approximately 156 cities. The duration of the test will be 180 minutes. There will be three sections: Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension, Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning, Section III: Quantitative Ability.
The aspiring candidate must hold a Bachelor’s Degree, with at least 50 per cent marks or equivalent CGPA (45 per cent in the case of candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Persons with Disability (PwD) categories), awarded by any University or educational institution as incorporated by an Act of Parliament or State legislature in India or declared to be deemed as an University under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification recognised by the Ministry of HRD.
Candidates appearing for the final year of Bachelor’s degree/equivalent qualification examination and those who have completed degree requirements and are awaiting results can also apply.
As per the legal requirements, 15 per cent of the seats are reserved for SC and 7.5 per cent for ST candidates; 27 per cent of the seats are reserved for Other Backward Classes candidates belonging to the “non-creamy” layer (NC-OBC). Up to 10 per cent of the seats are reserved for candidates from economically weaker sections.
Post Graduate Programmes in Management (PGP) are offered in the following IIMs: IIM Ahmedabad , IIM Amritsar , IIM Bangalore , IIM Bodh Gaya, IIM Calcutta , IIM Indore , IIM Jammu , IIM Kashipur, IIM Kozhikode IIM Lucknow IIM Nagpur IIM Raipur IIM Ranchi IIM Rohtak , IIM Sambalpur , RGIIM Shillong , IIM Sirmaur, IIM Tiruchirappalli , IIM Udaipur , IIM Visakhapatnam
Candidates will be allotted exactly 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and they will not be allowed to switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section.
Some questions in each section may not be of multiple-choice type. Instead, direct answers will have to be typed on the screen. Candidates are advised to work on the tutorials available on the CAT website well in advance. CAT website: www.iimcat.ac.in. There are many coaching institutes all over the country and one may choose them according to their credibility.
(The author is a career mentor, skill trainer, motivational speaker and strategic planner who and can be reached at [email protected] or 8473943734 for any career related queries)