Its that time of the year again! While the whole nation prepares for a festive season ahead, some 2 lakh cat aspirants are busy wrapping up their preparation for the mother of all exams! I being one of them took some time off and pondered why so much importance is given to this ONE exam and how it might evolve in the coming years.
First of all, if one carefully studies the weightage pattern given to CAT scores by the top 30 colleges, one will find that over the years it has steadily decreased and more and more weightage are being given to other parameters like WAT, PI, Work Ex, Quality of work ex, Extra Curricular etc. Now that CAT has been running successfully on a computer based platform for 4 consecutive years, so it will be safe to assume that the next logical step that the IIMs will take is to do away with the luck factor (alleged) that comes with the slot structure and the resulting discontent among a large section of the aspirants.
The window for taking CAT will be open throughout the year much like the GMAT or the GRE. And percentiles will make way for simple but scaled scores. There will be no limit or a very high limit for the number of attempts one can take. One can send their best score to their target institutes along with their profiles and other documents.
An immediate fallout will be a sharp decrease in the number of people enrolling in CAT training institutes, which the IIMs so desperately want. High performing employees of different companies across different sectors will not suddenly leave their job to prepare for a single exam, which in turn will increase the productivity of the nation (I know this is far-fetched ? But most importantly IIMs, which are highly regarded by the educated middle-class, will set an example that everything in life is not exam-oriented and exams definitely are not a do or die situation as we are made to believe from our school days! It is okay to do badly in a few exams and doing badly doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have to wait for another whole calendar year to get another shot at CAT.
Moreover as the ‘supposed exam competition; becomes easier people will concentrate more on other aspects of their profile like projects, work ex, extra-curricular etc. which in turn will help them more in their future than preparing for a single exam. And even after getting into those coveted institutes there is a greater possibility that they won’t become complacent because deep within they will know that it was not because of a single exam that they have secured admission but because of what they have done throughout their entire adult life!