A ballpark of 60,000 applicants has registered for the Common Management Aptitude Test (CMAT) of September 2012, SS Mantha Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) confirmed to PaGaLGuY today.

In addition, almost 9,000 candidates have opted for CMAT test centres in Mumbai. The other most popular test centre cities include New Delhi, Pune and Ahmedabad.

Commenting on the fall in CMAT registration numbers compared to its February 2012 version which had 70,000 registrants, Dr MA Khan, Director, Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE), Mumbai said that he did not believe that it was fair to compare the two registration numbers. "The September version of CMAT is a bonus that is being provided to MBA aspirants to improve upon their test scores," Dr Khan told PaGaLGuY.

He also believed that AICTE had been unable to put out proper advertising for the CMAT September version and that had affected the registration numbers. In addition, state universities had announced their decision to accept CMAT scores only at the last minute, which had not given students enough time to register. "Comparisons about the final CMAT registration numbers should be made only after the February 2013 registrations for the exam," Dr Khan said.

Earlier this month, AICTE had postponed the CMAT registration deadline from September 2 to September 7, 2012 citing the late addition of state universities in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to the CMAT acceptors' list. Other state universities including Maharashtra, Kerala and Rajasthan had already announced their intention of accepting CMAT scores for admissions starting this year.

While state universities have given positive feelers about CMAT, many private AICTE-approved b-schools still refuse to consider CMAT scores for admissions. While Goa Institute of Management (GIM) and Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Nagpur and Hyderabad are some of the institutes accepting CMAT scores, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad have confirmed that they will not consider CMAT scores for admissions for the next academic session.

CMAT is a three-hour online paper that is executed on-ground by Aptech Computer Education. The test is scheduled in a four-day window from September 27 to October 1, 2012. The Computer based test will be held in 64 cities across India.