Almost 2.8 lakh attempt to bell 'CAT 2008'

New Delhi: A quintessential example of India's overpopulation – around 2.5 lakh students will attempt to qualify, or bell, CAT 2008, which will allow them a shot at one of the 1,800 seats at the elite Indian Institutes of Management.

The Common Admission Test, best known as The CAT, will take place this year across 23 cities in India, and will have more than 2.5 lakh students appearing for the exam, including around half a lakh from the National Capital Region.

Around 2.5 lakh forms have been short listed for the CAT 2008 examination, higher than last year's count of around 2.12 lakh candidates who took the test in 2007. Students who manage to make the cut would then go through other selection procedures at the Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong.

Next year, another six new IIMs are expected to start functioning. A number of other business schools also prefer to accept the CAT scores as part of their own admission criteria, rather than hold competing exams. Around 40 colleges are said to have opted to enlist in the list of institutions who would select students having qualified the CAT exam. CAT scores hold good when applying to other management institutes such as Kirloskar Institute of Management, Mudra Institute of Communication (MICA) Ahmedabad, Nirma Institute of Management, SP Jain Institute, TA PAI and others.

Around 7,000 applications were rejected this year on account of errors in the application forms.