CAT 2017: Notification, Eligibility, Registration

Common Admission Test (CAT) is one of the competitive entrance examinations for pursuing postgraduate programmes in Business Administration. It is the gateway for admission to 19 Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) and various B-schools located across the country. This national level examination is conducted by the IIMs on the rotation basis. Every year a large number of candidates appear the CAT examination and the number is increasing year by year. The candidates are informed to consider CAT 2016 for admission in the year 2017. This article familiarizes the candidate with all the necessary details and notifications about CAT 2017.

Important Dates

Here we have provided the tentative dates of CAT 2017 as follows:

• Start Date of Online Application: first week of August, 2017
• Last Date of Online Application: third week of September, 2017
• Admit Card Download Date: last week of October, 2017
• CAT 2017 Exam Date: last week of November, 2017
• Result Announcement Date: Second week of January, 2018

Courses Offered Through CAT 2017

• PGP
• PGPEM
• PGP-ABM
• PGPPM
• PGP-Mumbai
• PGP-UAE
• EPGPM
• PGPSM
• PGPWE
• PGDM
• PGDHRM
• PGPEX
• PGPBM

CAT 2017 Registration

The candidates who are interested for CAT 2017 are required to visit the official website of CAT for registration process. The application form will be released by the officials in the month of August, 2016 (tentative). Before start registration, check your eligibility by referring the eligibility document available on the official website of CAT 2017. For payment purpose, net banking, credit card (Visa/Master/American Express)/ Debit card (Visa/Master) will be applicable. The general candidates/NC-OBC has to pay Rs. 1600 while the candidates of reserved community (SC)/ST will be charged Rs. 800. In addition to this payment, transaction processing fees will also be applicable separately.

Eligibility Criteria

The eligibility criteria for CAT 2017 are mentioned below:

• The minimum qualification required is bachelor’s degree with 50% marks (45% for SC/ST/PWD). If the obtained marks are in the form of CGPA then it would be converted to percentage marks based on the procedure certified by the university/ institution from where the candidate has passed his/her bachelor degree.
• The candidates appearing in the final year of bachelor’s degree and whose results are awaiting are also eligible to apply for CAT.

Reservations

As per the policy of Indian government, the seat reservation will be applicable for CAT and the seats are reserved as follows:

• Schedule Caste (SC) – 15% seats
• Schedule Tribe (ST) – 7.5% seats
• Non Creamy – Other Backward Classes (NC-OBC) – 27% seats
• PWD Differently Abled (DA) candidates – 3% seats

The candidates claiming reservation have to upload their supporting certificates at the time of application/registration. In case of failure of uploading such documents will result in the rejection of your application.

Exam Pattern

It must be necessary for the candidates to have knowledge about the examination pattern that includes number of questions appear in the examination, number of sections, time duration, areas from where question paper will be made, etc. In this section we have provided the complete format of CAT 2017.

CAT is the computer based test (CBT) whose question paper type is MCQ. The question paper will consists of total 100 questions partitioned into three sections namely Quantitative Aptitude (QA), Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR) and Verbal and Reading Comprehension (VRC). The time allotted to answer the questions will be 3 hours, 60 minutes for each section. Some of the questions will be of non-MCQ and are of subjective type. The sections of QA and VRC contain 34 questions while DILR section will have 32 questions.

The candidates are facilitated with on-screen calculator for calculation purpose. They need not to bring any physical calculator on the examination day.

Marking System

The candidates are credited with 3 marks for every correct answer and minus 1 mark for each incorrect response. No marks will be provided or deducted for the un-attempted question.

Preparation Tips

Planning is the initial step for every task and for exam preparation it works too. The students are advised to plan their study hours as per your syllabus. Go through the latest syllabus and exam pattern before start preparation. Refer the right study material and books that also contain the previous years solved question papers. Allot some of your time for rest also and don’t avoid revision.

CAT 2017 Admit Card

The admit card has released by the conducting authority of CAT on its official website and will be available for downloading in the last week of October. The candidates have to furnish this document as the entry ticket at the examination centre.  In addition to this, a valid identity proof is also needed on the day of the examination.

CAT 2017 Result

The result of the CAT 2017 will be declared in the second week of January, 2018 tentatively. The candidates can check their result through the official website of IIM CAT 2017 by providing their valid user ID and password.  Also, the result intimation message will also be sent to the candidate’s registered phone number. The result contains the percentile marks as well as sectional and total marks obtained by the candidate. After the announcement of result, the cut-off marks will be released by the IIMs.

CAT Score Card

The authority will announce the section-wise score card that contains all the details relevant to the performance of candidates in CAT 2017 exam. The candidates are able to access their score card on the same day of the result announcement. The score card of CAT will be valid for one year. The candidates have to login with their credentials to download the score card.

CAT Cut-Off Marks

The candidates who have crossed the cut-off criteria set by the IIMs are eligible for admission in IIMs. Each Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) has released their own cut-off marks for admitting the students. Obtaining the cut-off marks will not guarantee your admission, your past academic record, work experience will also matters in providing admission to IIMs. The average cut-off marks for IIMs are mentioned below:

Selection Process

On the basis of the CAT cut-off marks, IIMs and various b-schools shortlists the candidates. The shortlisted candidates are further called for Personal Interview (PI), Group Discussion (GD) and Written Ability Test (WAT). The admission will be done on the basis of the overall scores secured by the candidates in CAT score card, GD, PI and WAT. Apart from this, candidate’s academic performance and work experience is also taken into consideration at the time of admission. The IIMs have also release their own admission procedure and criteria for providing admission. The selection process varies B-school to B-schools.

If you have any doubt regarding CAT 2017, you may ask us by commenting below.

The post CAT 2017: Notification, Eligibility, Registration appeared first on SarvGyan.