CAT results by Feb-end,deferment draws flak

IIM-A’s corporate communications manager Ishita Solanki said the announcement was made to keep communication channels open,and the initial tentative timeline of the third week of February has been shifted to the following week.

No dates have been set,and no date has been finalised as yet either,Solanki said,adding the “change of the system of examination” could have been part of the reason,without elaborating further.

CAT 2009 was the first online CAT examination conducted in India,and about 2.15 lakh candidates had appeared for it.

CAT convener Satish Deodhar,a professor at IIM-Ahmedabad,could not be reached for comment despite several attempts.

One of the major problems the further delay would mean for candidates is that many of them have appeared in several admission tests for various institutes. With the results for these other exams already out,candidates expressed confusion whether they should go ahead and admit themselves or wait for the CAT results.

Manonit Kaur took her online CAT exams in Chandigarh. But in the meantime,she also applied for the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC). Kaur said the various exam slots with apparently differing questions have made it difficult for her to estimate her percentile unlike previous years,when the pencil and paper format meant a uniform test.

“I heard the CAT tests would be evaluated according to the difficulty level of each slot,and that makes it very hard to predict my percentile,” she said.

Kaur has been shortlisted for admissions in SIMC,and she is now worried and confused about what to do – admit herself in SIMC or wait for the CAT results. Luckily,she said,the deadline for Symbiosis is March,which still puts her in the safe zone. “But if it is delayed further,then it will really be a big problem,” she said.

Besides such situations,the latest announcement has been doing the rounds on online MBA portals and websites as well,where comments varied from skepticism (of whether the results will really be out by end of February) to suspicion (a user on http://www.pagalguy.com even suggested a scam over the multi-million contract between the IIMs and Prometric.)

Another user expressed doubts over the veracity of the awaited results: “Did virus attack the results as well? Are our results safe and genuine? How can we trace back our results if something goes wrong?”

Neeraj Bangalorakar,who took his CAT test at the Thakur Polytechnic,Kandivali,Mumbai,told The Sunday Express: “I personally feel the IIMs have goofed up the results. The tests were online anyway,so the results should not have taken more than two weeks to be out.”

Some candidates were amused with yet another CAT hic-up.

When asked if she had heard about the latest announcement,Kaur (the candidate from Chandigrah),replied by asking,“Which one? There have been so many announcements regarding CAT 2009.”

Others were simply indifferent. Amit Manohar,who tested at the Vivekananda College in Bangalore,said,“This year,CAT hasn’t really been well-organised. But let’s hope for the best. We can’t do anything about it anyway.”