Should CAT go online?

The recent spurt in the number of CAT applicants had led to a situation where a paper-pencil CAT exam has become unmanageable. This has led to the thought that CAT should be made online. Though a good thought, it has its own set of problems.

Firstly, making comparisons with GMAT is little misplaced as GMAT is a qualifying exam and CAT being an elimination exam, have different goals. Since CAT is an elimination exam, then it makes more sense have it at the same time throughout the country.

Secondly, If IIMs plan to have it on different days, then it needs to take care that difficulty level is maintained across and percentiles received are uniform.

Thirdly, the obvious concern would be of security and high setup costs, but one time investment is really needed for future test takers.

Moreover, this might facilitate CAT being held outside India as sometimes applicants have to come down to India to take the exam.

It is agreed that online CAT will be definitely a better idea but implementing with fool-proof ways will be the challenge. The best part would be that score would be applicable for more than one year, which will reduce hassles to a great extent, of taking the exam in that very year only.