Alumni Guest House : Donated by Mr. Mody (Class of '55)

MUMBAI: CAT will now be a frenzied blur of clicks. Ending weeks of speculation, the Indian Institute of Management has come out and declared its intention to conduct the Common Admission Test (CAT) online from November 2009.

The decision will impact thousands of students who appear for the highly competitive entrance exam at centres across the country in the hope of scoring high enough to make it to one of the IIMs. The online move will mean changes but internet-age students seem comfortable with the idea.

If the exam goes online, not all students will be able to take the exam on the same day as is the case now. The exam will have to be conducted in staggered batches within a window period of a few months. The other change will be that instead of the current single exam paper, the online test will have several different papers of the same level of difficulty.

The online model will be similar to US exams like the GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test) and the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) except that the results will not appear instantly.

Asish Bhattacharyya, admissions chairperson at IIM Calcutta, said that an online system would "help us handle the huge number of students appearing for the test every year. Last year the number crossed 2.3 lakh". This number is only expected to increase with projections of three lakh-plus in 2009.

The process of conducting the exam—including processing the results and reporting the scores—will be outsourced to a private service provider who has prior experience in online tests. "But the IIMs will retain complete control over the test," said an official.

Most students who are comfortable with the online world have welcomed the move. "I think it’s a great idea if CAT goes online. This will make it more transparent and error-proof," said Mehul Gandhy, a B-school aspirant.

Others from the management field said that while the online exam was an idea whose time had come there were several logistical aspects to be considered. "It’s a great idea but I have my doubts about exactly how the IIMs will manage to conduct the exams online for such large numbers," said Arks Srinivas, director of TIME, a coaching institute.

"There are issues of connectivity. Also, if the exams are not conducted on the same day, it will be next to impossible to set more than one exam paper and maintain exactly the same level of difficulty."

While the CAT is currently conducted under tight security—the question paper seal is broken in the presence of an IIM professor in each centre where the exam is held—many wonder whether the same stringent security will be maintained when the test goes online. After all, as Srinivas points out, there is always the danger of someone hacking into the online software.

Bhattacharyya, however, insists that every security precaution will be taken while conducting the exam.