How has the student community responded to CMAT this year?
The response has been good. We have received around 61,000 registrations for CMAT this year.
How are the B schools reacting to this?
As days progress, the number of B schools accepting CMAT scores will keep rising. For the first exam of 2012, 10 states have agreed on accepting CMAT scores and the others will follow suit, it is just a matter of time. Some states have responded while the others are yet to respond on CMAT, which is being held from September 27 till October 1, 2012.
Was there a strategy behind starting the management season with CMAT?
The only intention was to give students time for their semester exams. Had we held the exam a month later, it would have clashed with their semester exams. And, if we held it towards the end of year, it would have clashed with the end-term examinations. Also, in that case (latter), we did not have a suitable time-gap for the second CMAT test. By holding the test in Sept/Oct we are also ensuring that students get enough time between the first and the second exam which will be announced in February 2013.
How do you view the format of CMAT?
This format allows students to save time, energy and money by institutionalising online testing. This also saves a lot of hassles for the colleges by facilitating one time testing for a lot of colleges put together. We are happy to innovate in the conventional pattern of such exams and drive it successfully. The scores of current CMAT and the next, to be announced in February 2013, will be used for admissions in academic year 2013-2014.
What was the need to hold CMAT twice a year?
A lot of people have asked me this question. There are two reasons for holding the exam twice a year. One is to provide freedom and an option to the student to plan when they want to take the test. If a certain student falls sick on the day of the exam, at least s/he doesn’t have to lose a year in the process. And the other is the fact that the students can choose their best score in the two exams to apply to institutes, also makes it a win-win situation for them.
As CMAT gains popularity, do we see some improvisations happening in terms of the paper pattern?
Changes and improvisations can happen in a certain framework. We cannot make drastic changes to the exam format, but within the larger test, we would like to include a test that can gauge a candidate’s intelligence quotient vis-à-vis pursuing a management programme. We would like CMAT to have a section where a candidate’s aptitude along with his/her emotional maturity can be judged. The test should be able to probe the various facets one is good at. Through hypothetical situations, the test will determine the disposition of a candidate to a certain event. We are looking at a test that can figure out if you are level-headed, stable, shy, patient, because your traits influence what kind of a manager you will be.
What is your vision for CMAT? Do you envision it as the leading management test in India in future?
It will be very difficult to say what will happen in the future. However, gauging the situation as it stands today I would say that we have a problem of plenty. There are too many colleges offering too many programmes, holding too many exams. In a situation like this, a student has to spend a lot of money to appear for as many tests, and live in the fear of missing out on some exam. Because of these reasons, we have seen that most students ultimately take a handful of exams to succeed. The vision for CMAT is to provide a single window to our students, so that they can perform their best.
One hears of various B-schools closing down every year. Does the situation worry you?
Closure is a matter of consolidation. So far we have seen 138 closures this year, out of which 65 have been in management. In Andhra Pradesh alone we have seen 40 schools shutting shop. However, solely looking at the schools shutting down presents an incomplete picture. Over the last five years, we have seen a 35% increase in the number of seats available to students. This year, 80 new B schools have received approvals from AICTE.
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