The 2010-11 admission season to Indian b-schools received a formal flag-off with the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) publishing the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2010 notification in national dailies on August 22. The exam will be held in a computer-based format at 32 cities on 20 calendar days between October 27 and November 24, 2010. The result will be declared on January 12, 2011.

The exam is the gateway for admissions to the Post Graduate Programmmes in Management, Computer-aided Management, Agri-business Management, Software Enterprise Management and Public Policy & Management distributed across the IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Ranchi, Rohtak and Shillong. Additionally, the Fellow Programmes in Management at these IIMs and the Executive PGP at IIM Indore also use the CAT score for their admissions.

Additionally, at least 147 other business management institutions use the score for admissions to their MBA or equivalent programmes.

The test will be of two and a half hours duration, preceded by a 15-minute tutorial. Each testing day will have two testing sessions, one at 10 am and the other at 3:30pm to handle the volume of test-takers.

The number of test centers have been considerably reduced compared to those in CAT 2009. Navi Mumbai now has only two centers instead of last year’s five. Greater Noida and Ghaziabad have only four test-centers in between them compared to 2009’s ten. With ten centers, Bangalore has the largest number of testing sites in CAT 2010. Hyderabad and Kolkata have four centers each in 2010; both had eight centers each in 2009.

The CAT 2010 schedule

www.catiim.in, the official CAT website now sports a refreshed look with information about CAT 2010. Like last year, the registration for CAT 2010 will require you to buy vouchers from Axis Bank branches for Rs 1,400 (Rs 700 for SC/ST applicants), followed by an Internet-based registration process. You can choose a test date and location that suits you during the registration.

Briefly,

1. The vouchers will sell at Axis Bank branches between August 30 and September 27, 2010
2. The online registration will be open between August 30 and September 30, during which you will be asked to select a test center and date.
3. You can reschedule your test between August 30 and September 30, in case you change your mind.
4. The test will take place between October 27 and November 24.
5. The result and scorecards will be made available on the CAT website on January 12, 2011.

We’ll be back with more updates as they happen.