The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the makers of the Common Admission Test (CAT), are planning to put out a ‘CAT survey trends report’ over the next two years, providing detailed insights into the demographic profile of CAT takers over five years, a source in the CAT committee told PaGaLGuY.

Inspired by the ‘Profile of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) Candidates’ report published by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) annually, the the report will contain trends such as the geographical origin of CAT aspirants, diversity in terms of gender and discipline as well as the average performance of all the candidates in the various sections of the test and how all of this has changed across five years.

“The idea behind creating this report is to increase transparency and put out prolific data related to CAT, which will help CAT applicants and industry stakeholders in analysing the pulse of the management market in the country,” the source said.

The authorities are planning to put out the first such report after the computer-based CAT completes five years.

The GMAC report, from which the CAT survey will be inspired, establishes the number of candidates who have appeared for the GMAT exam over the past five years, and also shares details about the average test scores by age, group, gender, citizenship and residency. While citizenship might be an invalid issue for the CAT, the geographic trends in the CAT report may instead contain data about candidate distribution across states and cities.

Majority of the IIMs have expressed their interest in the idea and have shown willingness to help formulate the report, the source said.