Online CAT Troubles!

CAT (one of the world's toughest exams!) is going online from this year. Around 2.41 lakhs (around 0.25 million) students will be writing it this year to get into one of the India's premier B-Schools. CAT 2009 will be conducted in a 10 day window from 28th Nov to 7th Dec 2009.

But the supposedly simpler process of online exam seems to have become very painful for few students. First day of online CAT exam i.e. 28th November 2009 saw many students going without answering CAT!! Prometric, supposedly best in this business of arranging infrastructure for such exams has failed measurably. Few of the most common problems include unable to login using unique username and password provided by Prometric itself, computer viruses, computer crash during test duration etc. These are very common problems but still they occured and it's quite shameful for Prometric. It's not just the end of problems but they have cancelled exams on 29th Nov 2009 also at around 50 centres countrywide. Now thats really harsh on students.

Students who were supposed to appear on 29th Nov on those 50 selected centres must have been traumatized. It's like years of preparation and hard work and most importantly mental preparation is waste. Just before one day of your exam you come to know that your exam has been postponed! It's just too much for students especially for them who are still in college and going to answer their semester exams next week. I don't know if they will be able to write CAT if it clashes with their semester exams. IIMs need to more careful about this and also others who have already planned something beforehand. This is also very difficult for those who come from small cities to appear for CAT. They will have to plan their travel again.

It's not the beginning! It all started when CAT bulletin/forms were out for purchase through Axis/Vijaya bank outlets. Initially there was not option to edit your preferences and details. Because of this many students had to purchase the form more then once. Pure waste of money and time. Thank god finally they agreed to refund at least the extra vouchers' money. First of all , why do you have go to Axis Bank outlet to purchase the coupon?? Exam's online!! Why payment is not online???

IIMs boast for their quality management education but couldn't manage their own entrance exams well!!