New Delhi, Feb. 7: Eight of the 11 IIMs this year will conduct CAT interviews in four common cities, which should reduce travel hassles for city-hopping aspirants.
Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Calcutta are the chosen cities where the interviews for the eight B-schools — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Ranchi, Rohtak, Raipur and Trichy — will be conducted.
“Earlier the student used to get interview calls from more than one institute and had to visit different cities where the IIMs were conducting the interviews,” said IIM CAT convener Himanshu Rai. This year, students can appear for interviews at a common location, though the interview itself may not be common.
The IIMs in Indore, Kozhikode and Shillong will hold separate interviews.
Around 3,000 candidates, who have got calls from the eight B-schools, for sessions popularly known as GDPI (group discussion and personal interview), have to go to the city closest to their home centre on the scheduled date.
The first GDPI session will start in Bangalore in the last week of February. In Mumbai, the session take place in the first week of March, and in Delhi the second or third week of next month. Calcutta will hold the interviews last — at the end of March.
For example, a CAT aspirant from Ranchi needs to come to Calcutta to appear for the GDPI for any of the eight IIMs. The interview locations for the IIMs may not be the same, but they will be in the same city.
Three new IIMs — Ranchi, Rohtak and Raipur — started classes last year. IIM Trichy, the newest, will launch its academic programme this year. The new IIMs will have common content for the GDPI — that is, students will face the same group discussion topics. But the criteria for selection would be different. For example, IIM Ranchi may give more weightage to academic performance of a candidate than the other IIMs.
B.S. Sahay, the director of the Raipur B-school, spoke in favour of the common venue plan. “This step is aimed at optimisation of resources. Candidates seeking admission to the new IIMs will not have to run from pillar to post. They will have to appear in a common interview. Once they clear it, they will be eligible for admission to any of the four IIMs if they satisfy specific criteria of the individual B-school.”
The four older IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow — may have different GDPI content.
The human resource development ministry had in 2008 suggested the IIMs, like the IITs, should find a way to hold interviews at common venues. This would reduce costs as each IIM was holding its own interview so long.
