Trump US win prompts more students to opt for CAT way

HYDERABAD: CAT (Common Admission Test) for PG courses in Management, Finance, HR, Business Analytics, Supply Chain Management etc in IIMs and various B-Schools across the country is slated for December 2 this year.

Nearly 13,000 students from the two Telugu states will appear for the test with centres in Hyderabad, Warangal, Khammam, Guntur, Vijayawada, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam. After Delhi and Karnataka, this year students from TS and AP are the third highest in terms of number of candidates writing the exam.

The number of Telugu aspirants used to be around 10,000 every year, but this year the number has shot up by nearly 3000, according to Mr T. Shrinivas Acharya, principal director, Vishwa Vishwani Business School, one of the 10 B-Schools in Hyderabad that gives admissions based on CAT scores.

“The uncertainty over higher studies and job opportunities in the US under the President-elect Donald Trump and considerable drop in campus recruitments by IT companies are the main reasons for the increased numbers this year,” he said.

The number of seats on offer is around 5,600 in 19 IIMs; in B-schools it is roughly 25,000. However, the most sought-after ones are five IIMs in Bengaluru, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Kozhikode, with IIM-Indore in sixth place.
Mr Acharya said that job opportunities in the management sector were very good compared to even the IT sector.

“The minimum pay being offered to freshers coming out of top IIMs is '12 lakh per annum, while candidates having prior job experience in big companies are being paid '24 lakh,” he added.