The AICTE released the results of CMAT 2014 a couple of days ago and it bears an interesting but not too surprising comparison with the same exam a year ago.

88,942 students wrote the exam which was topped by Hendre Omkar Pravinchandra of Kolhapur with a score of 317. Incidentally (from unverified sources), he also featured in the top 10 in CMAT Sept 2013 with a 100 in the Quant section. The top score was well below the 376 secured in Feb 2013 and so was the median score. The number of 300+ scores were the fewest this time around with five, down from a whopping 325 such scores in Feb 2013.

The 90 percentile score also dropped from 186 to 138. A comparison with Sept 2013 exam also shows a similar trend with thirteen 300+ scores with a 90 percentile score of 185.

While one can argue that all these data points directly point to an increase in the difficulty level, it should also be noted that some of it can be attributed to an abandonment of the Feb CMAT by many strong candidates in Maharashtra for the MHCET along with many of the AICTE colleges opening up admissions on the scores of other MBA exams as well. The absolute score cutoffs for colleges hence will probably not be as high as in 2013.

While the CMAT started with an objective of consolidating several MBA exams and was positioned to become the largest MBA exam in India, it has run into several obstacles (many of which were self-created). Hence it comes as no surprise that there was a 24% decline in the number of the student attempts this year, largely due to the Supreme Court order last year and the re-introduction of the CET in Maharashtra, not to mention the several execution related issues that left students largely dissatisfied with the exam/admission process. Despite these challenges, CMAT is still the second largest exam in India by student count, slightly ahead of XAT.

With the MBA exams for 2013-14 coming to a close, its not been a typically great year for the exams with almost every exam seeing a considerable decline in applications. Who would have thought a year ago that the credibility of the testing & scoring of India’s most famous MBA exam will be decided in a court and who would have thought that an Ant would bring down the mighty CAT.

Here’s hoping for a better 2014-15 for MBA exams.

Abhishek Patil is the Founder of Oliveboard, a preparation platform for CAT, XAT, CMAT and other MBA exams.This article was originally published here.