CAT 2009: is the popularity going down?

The voucher sale and the registration for CAT 2009 is over and the final figure of the registrations is here. Contrary to the popular belief of the number of CAT applicants crossing the 3 lakh mark this year, the total number of applicants who registered for CAT till October 11, 2009 (also the last date for registration) is 2,41,582. The total number of vouchers sold were 2,46,912, which means that around five thousand people chose not to register for CAT after buying the voucher which also includes people who bought multiple vouchers due to their confusion with the ‘edit’ option. The number of people taking the CAT has decreased this year. Although we will not know the final number of candidates who eventually take CAT 2009 till after December 7, it will be lower than the 2,46,000 applicants who took it in 2008.

The decrease in numbers can be attributed to CAT 2009 going online. According to Prof Satish Deodhar, convener for CAT 2009, the candidates made an informed decision of taking the CAT due to the whole procedure going online. He says, “we went paperless and requested candidates to visit IIM websites, check eligibilities, decide which programs they are interested in, and then choose to buy CAT vouchers”. The hassle of online registration and an online test might have also kept many first time test takers away. However, the number of applications ‘rejected’ this year due to wrong or incomplete information was zero due to the online registration and the ‘edit’ option (which was introduced later).

As for the profile of the candidates who registered, engineers still remain the most devoted to CAT. This year too 65 percent of the total registrants belong to the engineering, architecture and technology category. Next highest, but not quite as much are the commerce, economy and management graduates at 23 percent. Female candidates stand at 26 percent and there are 71 percent candidates with more than six months of work experience. Category wise, 82 percent of the candidates are from the General and 11 percent from the OBC (non creamy layer) category.

Update: Of the total number of candidates who have registered, 763 of them belong to the Differentially Able or the DA category. This makes for approximately 0.30 percent of the total number of registrants.

Errata: It was incorrectly stated that 71 percent candidates had more than 6 months or more work experience. The correct figure is that 71 percent candidates had less than or equal to 6 months of work experience.