BT Best B-Schools & HR Summit: CAT exam needs a relook, says Varun Nagaraj of SPJIMR

The Common Admission Test (CAT), which opens the doors to most of country’s leading B-Schools including the IIMs, need a revamp, feels a top management school faculty. While the exam, conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, to select its MBA students, the examination is highly skewed towards students with strong background in aptitude like mathematics, data analysis and logical reasoning. This has resulted in a higher percentage of engineering students making their way to the top B-Schools over the years, while students from humanities backgrounds have lagged.

According to Varun Nagaraj, secretary & convener, Dean at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, the CAT examination needs a relook. “The CAT exam needs a relook. Am I happy with more 70 per cent of the students at SPJIMR coming from engineering background? No. The exam is surely skewed towards engineers due its nature. It also has consequences on gender diversity apart from academic diversity in the classrooms. It makes the classroom poorer (in terms of diversity),” he said at the BT Best B-Schools and HR Summit in New Delhi on Friday.

However, there are challenges against bringing a parity in the exam that may offer equal opportunities to students from diverse backgrounds. Currently, greater weightage on aptitude makes it easier for students from engineering background compared to humanities students.

According to Nagaraj, introduction of written answers instead of multiple choice questions may help solve the problem. “I think, incorporating reading and writing comprehension and gradation system may help solve the issue. Something like the SAT or SET system like in the US would help in ensuring that the candidate actually understands the topic,” he said.

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