An important voice was lost in the din while the country went into an uproar against the mismanagement of the CAT 2009 – that of the Parents of CAT aspirants. As exam-takers flooded online and offline channels to express their anger about the CAT, their parents suffered the agony vicariously in the background. One such parent, Mr Nirmal Kumar from Noida, whose daughter appeared for the CAT in one of the mismanaged slots in November 2009, wrote to us illustrating how he observed and thought of the commotion surrounding CAT 2009. With his permission, we reproduce the letter here.

(Disclosure: Written on December 30, 2009, the letter does not add the context of the CAT 2009 second phase on January 30 and 31. We are aware of that, but we still decided to publish the letter for the sake of posterity.)

In 2004, the CAT exam was re-held since the question papers had leaked. It was a wise decision taken by the IIMs that ended up upholding the credibility of the CAT and that of the IIMs, giving all aspirants a fair chance to bell the CAT.

However in 2009, the IIMs’ decision to not scrap the CAT 2009 is shocking to say the least. The CAT 2009 exams had a number of technical glitches such as non-working biometric systems, repeated and non-visible questions, repeated answer options, malfunctioning computers and features (review buttons, timers etc.), missing graphs & charts, screens going blank in the middle of the test, computers rebooting and much more. While the IIMs and Prometric claim that 2.15 Lakhs candidates out of total 2.41 Lakhs successfully completed their exams (in the first phase), few of the technical issues were attended to during the exams causing distraction and anxiety. Confused invigilators were constantly discussing and talking to each other and to the Prometric phone helpline in-between the exam, causing disturbance which obviously had its impact on performance of candidates.

A most important aspect in the whole episode was that several questions were repeated from previous slots with slight changes in numerical values, giving unfair advantage to those who took the tests later. It’s a known fact that major coaching institutes had placed their faculty members as dummy candidates in the tests, who together could reproduce all the questions and pass them on in sessions with their students to prepare them better for later dates. Such questions were also discussed and listed out in forums on social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, etc.

I find it hard to understand that while all major coaching institutes could each have around 25-30 mock tests for their students during the preparation months without repeating a single question, why was it not possible for the IIMs to do so in these ten or eleven sets of tests?

The demand for scrapping CAT 2009 was initially raised by candidates, coaching institutes, Faculty Associations of the IIMs with active support from the media, amidst concerns raised by the Union HRD Ministry, but IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore did not agree, since they were reportedly more concerned about the credibility of IIMs in conducting CAT exams, justifying spending large amount of public money on the first ever computer-based CAT and avoiding efforts required for a retest. Also since the subject was not of larger public interest, the media shifted their interest to more sensational issues such as Madhu Koda, Jharkhand elections, Telangana stir, Ruchika case or the Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhawan scandal, leaving the future of CAT aspirants at the mercy of IIMs.

As a parent, we have seen and lived the trauma and frustration of a candidate (our daughter) who was preparing for the test since the last 18 to 24 months. She has been scoring greater than 90 percentile in her coaching institute mock tests (Career Launcher and TIME), but could not do well enough in the actual CAT because she chose to appear in first three chaotic days of CAT. At her center, among other problems, she faced disturbance of over 45 minutes due to invigilators talking and making noise at next table.

The mismanaged two hours have totally shattered our daughter’s career plans since she had filled up forms for around 25-30 Business Schools taking the CAT score and spent between Rs 35,000 to 40,000 on this account. We do not know what will happen to her career now since she had rested her future entirely on the CAT 2009 (for which she had prepared well), and we never expected that the test organised by the IIMs will end up the way it has.

There is more. Later, she found that many questions that she had struggled through during the chaos were either discussed in her coaching institute or were available on social networking sites for the use of candidates appearing on later dates.

Therefore, it seems to me that the only eligibility for getting into the IIMs – one of the most prestigious business schools of the world, at least for this year – will be the cunning and shrewdness of the candidates in looking up questions from previous test slots through friends, social networking sites and coaching institutes.

Nirmal Kumar, NOIDA, 30 December 2009