The XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur which owns and conducts the XAT (Xavier Admission Test) is planning some surprises this year. According to sources at XLRI, while some changes have been finalised, some are still at the discussion stage.

The test will be held on January 6, 2013 and the form notification will be released on August 8, 2012.

One confirmed decision is to continue with the pencil and paper test format this year. Sources told PaGaLGuY that while internal discussions on the XAT paper noted that management aspirants are generally comfortable with computers, some ground for doubt is always there. "There are still people who are not too familiar with computers and we do not want to discriminate at the entry point itself. We will get to the computer format only when we are sure that there is going to be total satisfaction on all fronts," said the source.

Another change almost finalised, is that the main paper will be extended beyond two hours to two and a half hours, not including the essay. Also, a few more questions on humanities and social sciences will make an appearance this year, though the tenor of the paper will be kept 'analytical'.

"This is being done to get in more gender and discipline diversity," added the source.

XLRI said that it was in discussions with other institutes like the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, Xavier Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai, Loyola Institute of Business Administration Chennai and Xavier Institute of Social Studies, Ranchi on the changes in this year's XAT.

Another decision, which is final, is to conduct the exam at more centres. Mangalore and Trichy are definitely on the list and a few others like Kanpur, which were on the list earlier and had been discontinued will come back on the list.

Decisions will also be taken as and when applications start coming in, said the source. "Though 40% of the applications arrive in the last 15 days, we will sieve through the applications, to help us estimate further changes."