20K students miss CAT in 2014

Chennai: With around 20,000 CAT aspirants giving the test a miss this year, ac­ademicians are beginni­ng to wond­er if the pre­m­i­er Indian In­sti­tutes of Mana­ge­m­ent (IIM) are losing their all­ure for students.

According to the data provided by the Indian Institute of Ma­nagement (IIM), In­dore, the org­anising IIM for CAT this year, 1,73,738 candidates appeared for the examination when about 1,94,500 had registered for it.

Reflecting on the large nu­mber of students opting out of the test this year, head of the dep­artment of managem­e­nt studies at Madras Un­i­ver­sity, Prof. P T Srinivasan sa­­ys the trend is bound to have be­en noted by all stakeholders in ma­­­­nagement education.

“I think the number of abs­entees is high th­is year. St­u­dents have several op­­­ti­ons now and  seem to believe th­at besides IIMs several other B-sc­h­ools too can offer them top cla­ss management education,” he says.

Pointing out that several en­gi­ne­er­ing colleges too have co­me forw­ard to start manag­em­ent studies th­is year, he says th­is has added to the op­tions available for those int­er­­ested in this stream of education.

Dean (students), IIT-Ma­dras and management studies professor, L.S. Ganesh however beli­eves st­udents may have had personal re­asons not to appear for CAT this year.

“They may have decided to ta­ke the test next year. So I can’t co­nclude that students have lost interest in the IIMs,” he says.

IIT-M student tops CAT

N. Arun Kumar | DC

Chennai: It was not difficult for this CAT topper from IIT-Madras to score 100 percentile in his first attempt.

All that it took him was just a four-month preparation wit­h a few mock tests. T­ejaswi Kasturi (24), fin­al-year B.Tech & M.T­e­ch (dual degree) in electrical, microelectronics and VLSI design st­udent at IIT-Madras, says that the coaching he had undergone to get a seat in IIT helped him crack CAT too.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle on Wedn­esday, Tejaswi Kasturi, who hails from Secu­nd­erabad, said his strong training in fundamentals made it easy for him to crack the test with ease.

“I knew that my exam went well and I will score above 99 percentile. I was not su­re about 100 percentile. My fundamental in qu­ant was good bec­ause I had prepared for my placement at IIT which requires us to take a lot of quant te­sts. I had some verbal material and also took some mock tests,” he said.

Asked why he wanted to pursue management education, the 24-year-old engineer said when he was young, he asp­i­red to join electrical engi­neering at IIT, but af­ter joining IIT-Mad­ras, he developed a passion for finance, which made him take up CAT to get an ad­mission in one of the topmost IIMs in the country.

As he wanted to work be­fore joining an IIM to pu­rsue management stu­dies, pursuing an MBA, Kasturi, secured a job in one of the mu­lti-national finance fi­rm.

“Initially, I had pla­n­ned to work before joi­n­i­ng B-school. I had al­so passed CFA level-I. Now, I will discuss with my family whether I sh­ould drop the job of­fer, but mostly I will fir­st study and take up a job later,” he added.

Sravanth Talluri, an­o­ther final-year B.Tech electrical engineering stu­dent from IIT-Ma­dras, scored 99.98 percentile. “I secured this top mark in my first att­empt itself, which ma­kes me happy. I used to take tips from several groups on Facebook, which helped me crack the test. I’ve got a call letter from IIM-Ahm­ed­abad already,” he said.