The CAT 2022 is a few days away. This exam is a decider to land a seat in prestigious business schools like IIMs, MDI Gurgaon, IIT Kharagpur, DoMS IIT Delhi, and others.
Only a top CAT score isn’t enough to seek admission into top b-schools. CAT applicants have to endure other two levels in the process like Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI).
If you crack all the levels, your chances of getting into IIMs and other top institutes are high. But here’s the twist to the tale.
IIMs have only 5500 seats in total but lakhs of applicants give the CAT exam every year. If you don’t make it to the big leagues, what’s next?
Is it a full-stop to your management dream? The good news is there are alternative ways to get into top institutes that grade similar to IIMs.
Other best alternative exams that offer you a management seat in a reputed business school include XAT, NMAT, IIFT, FMS, and GMAT.
IIFT: Indian Institute of Foreign Trade or IIFT exam is conducted by the IIFT itself. The test is the same as CAT but it adds General Awareness to the list.
The paper consists of 110 questions and the duration of the exam is two hours. Unlike CAT, you don’t have a sectional limit for IIFT.
The application form for IIFT is available from September 30 onwards. You can get yourself registered for the exam before November 24. The exam takes place on December 18, 2022.
FMS: The Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, accepts CAT and GMAT scores but it also has its own entrance test called FMS.
The exam process is the same as the CAT exam followed by Extempore and personal interview. The application starts from October 1, 2022 and closes by November 15, 2022.
Shortlisted candidates will be announced for personal interview during the third week of March 2023. The final selection for the course will be announced during the third week of May 2023.
XAT: This is another best alternative exam to enter the leading b-school XLRI Jamshedpur. The exam registration starts from August 10, 2022 and ends by 30 November. 2022.
The exam will be conducted on January 8, 2023. You’ll get the results on January 31, 2023. The paper consists of 101 questions.
The XAT exam is divided into two parts with a set number of questions to attempt. The Part 1 comprises decision making (21), QA and DI (28), and VA and LR (26).
The part 2 comprises GK (25), and one essay writing. The exam duration is 190 minutes.
NMAT: The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) conducts the NMAT exam. Applicants can take this test thrice if they fail to do well in the initial one.
The time gap between each exam should be 15 days. The exam is categorized into three sections, namely, quantitative skills, language skills, and logical reasoning.
The paper will have 108 questions to attempt and the exam duration is 2 hours. The application window opens from August and ends in October.
The main exam starts in November and goes till December. The results will be out in January.