Until last year, CAT was one of the most prestigious exams to be held in this country. CAT was easily the exam of choice for any MBA aspirant in the country and it was the gateway to many premier MBA institutes in the country. CAT was an entrance exam set up by the IIMs and the scores are recognized by almost every other A and B grade universities across the country, with only those who wish to be different have set up their own exams without accepting the CAT scores. The tests are extremely secure and made such that there can be no fudging of results and copying during the exams. Different sets of papers are framed and they are framed such that in each section, no question in two papers appear in the same position, i.e. Question 5 in set A, will never be Question 5 in the sets B, C and D. It might be there in a different position, but it will never be there in the same position. This ensures that one student taking up the exam, even if he/she gets the chance to glance into his/her neighbour’s answer sheet, cannot copy the answer, because he/she will never know in which position that question is.
Such is the level of sophistication and strictness with which the CAT exams are conducted year on year. To crack the CAT exam, the students undergo rigorous training and there are specialized training institutes set up which offer various types of courses to the aspiring MBAs so that they can crack the CAT. From full time, year long courses, to crash courses that last a few months, to a series of mock tests. IIM occasionally throws a spanner in the works by changing their question paper pattern, every alternate year, or once in every 4 years, and maybe sometimes even without notice. I am not in the training market for CAT, so I have not studied this pattern, but the end result is that, one can never be prepared enough for CAT, for one will never thrown what the CAT has in store for them that year.
The year that I gave my CAT exam, which was in 2004 was I think the first time that the CAT papers had leaked. Immediately after doing well in the exams, as I reached home, the breaking news on TV proclaimed that the papers were leaked in some parts of the country and that lead to a cancellation of the exam and it being rescheduled a few months later. That in itself was sufficient humiliation to the IIMS and the organizers of CAT.
This year however, they decided to change the delivery system of the CAT exam altogether. It was not just a change in the pattern, but it was a change in the way the students took the exam. There would be no more usage of an OMR sheet to mark the answers but instead it would be done online and the students would have to mark the answers on a computer. The tests would be taken in batches and it could be taken at specified centers which specialized in delivery of such computer based tests. The most well known among them is of course Prometric.
Prometric is a USA based organization that specializes in computer based tests. I think most of the popular computer based tests such as GRE and TOEFL are delivered through Prometric. This time, to deliver the CAT exam, the IIMs had tied up with this Prometric company. What followed was very unfortunate. IIMs should have known well the sheer number of students giving this CAT exam. They should have done a mock drill with Prometric to see if they could handle an exam on this grand scale. However, they failed to do so. The end result was that the IIM were put to such a shame, the prestige of the CAT exam was brought down to the ground and tens of thousands of students who were MBA aspirants were harassed to no end. What happened was very simple and could easily be foreseen, the Prometric systems failed. At many centers where the exams were being conducted the datacenter failed and the students couldn’t take the exam. At other places where the students managed to complete the exam, they couldn’t submit their final scores due to system errors. The people at Prometric assured them that their scores would be submitted even though they didn’t get any online confirmation that the scores had been submitted. What guarantee will a candidate have that his/her scores have been submitted and submitted accurately.
The entire operation was such a flop show and it was such a loss of face for IIMs and CAT. Prometric claimed that there was a virus attack that caused this. That is such a lame excuse and they should be taken to task for giving such excuses and not taking care of security during such an important exam. In fact they should have prepared their system to handle such loads well in advance. They have been conducting such computer based exams since so many years and they have to be help completely accountable for what has happened. In fact, many of the students who were unable to give their exams were given alternate dates to take it up and they couldn’t attend the exams on those dates as well since the Prometric systems were down and still not working correctly. The last date for the exam was due and might have also passed, but there is still no guarantee from the IIMs on the fate of the students who were unable to successfully take up the CAT exam.
I feel the the government should step in and take IIM and Prometric to task for causing such a ruckus without planning in advance for such an eventuality. This is not something to be taken lightly and that can be dismissed easily. The two organizations and bodies have put so many students into trouble and caused mental distress to innumerable students and their parents. I feel the only way IIM can redeem their pride is to scrap this exam completely and like in 2004, reschedule the exam and have it on paper, on OMR like how they had done in the previous years. To think, IIMs had even increased their fees some years back, and what was it for, for this? For trying to show off to the world that they are modernizing without really verifying that they can. I am still waiting for news and updates on this year CAT and what is going to happen, but I do whatever happens does good for the community of MBA aspirants who were put through all this pain.