Common Admission Test (CAT)

Common Admission Test (CAT) is a computer based test conducted by IIM (Indian Institute of Management) every year for selecting candidates for the admission into Post Graduate Management Programs which started since the 1950. Besides IIM CAT is a prerequisite for admission into various other renowned Business Schools across India. CAT is held once in every year usually in the month of November or December. Candidates who aspires to do the course must fill up the required form for the appearing the examination. Normally the online registration for the test starts in the month of august. The essential criteria for applying the form are given under the following points:

Eligibility Criteria

• The candidate must have a bachelor’s degree with at least 50% marks or the equivalent CGPA. The candidates belonging to schedules Tribe (ST) and Schedule Caste (SC) community must a 45% in their graduation.
• The degree must have been granted by any of the universities under the act of the central or state legislature of India or the institutes established by the act of parliament or declared to be deemed as a University under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, and which have the recognition of the HRD ministry of India.
• Students who are appearing for the final examination of bachelor’s degree or the equivalent courses can also apply. Those who have completed their final exams and waiting for the results are also eligible for applying. Selected students under this category will get a provisional admission into the course only after furnishing a certificate from the principal or registrar of his/her college stating that the candidate have completed all the requirements for obtaining the bachelor’s degree/equivalent qualification on the date of the issue of the certificate.

The application fees for the students belonging to general category is rupees 1800/– and for the candidates under ST/SC categories are required to pay rupees 900/– only.

The CAT examination pattern undergoes specific changes every year and is unpredictable. However it is divided into three sections which consist of 100 objective type questions of 3 marks each and there is negative marking of 1 mark for each wrong answer.  A time period of 60 minutes is given for each section. The details pattern of the examination along with the allocated marks are given in the below table.

After qualifying the exam the shortlisted candidates are required to go through a second stage of selection conducted by IIM which includes a Written Ability Test (WAT) and a Personal Interview (PI). The candidates are selected according to their performance both in the entrance examination and the second stage of selection. IIMs also consider previous academic records of the candidates, relevant work experience and other similar inputs while shortlisting and ranking the candidates at various stages during the admission process.