Pic: Chris Isherwood

I deliberately bought my Common Admission Test (CAT) voucher today sometime 11.00 am thinking I’d catch the rush of other aspirants like me. Today was the last day of the voucher sale and by 1pm, the Axis Banks would stop selling them too. It was also a bank half-day. But Lokhandwala’s Axis Bank branch in Mumbai was nothing like what I expected – no long queues or harried students. Just a quiet buzz around me as a small group of people stood in a queue for the vouchers.

Abhay Nargund, Assistant Vice President of the Shivaji Park Axis bank branch justified the lack of a rush. There was nothing notable on the last day, just the normal rush, said Nargund. On being asked why there were such few people spotted in the banks, he replied saying, The span of the sale was quite large as the dates were extended, so there was no particular haste on the part of the CAT candidates.

Janakiraman Moorthy, the CAT convenor this year, explained the reason for the extension. The Indian Institutes of Technology and the Faculty of Management Studies announced its decision to accept CAT scores only much later, he said. So we wanted to give the students at least three weeks to prepare for this change. But what consequences will students face if they wait till the last day? The students might get centres that are inconvenient for them or are far from where they stay, suggested Prof Moorthy. But we will be able to accommodate the candidates in their own cities as we prepare according to the data we have received in the last three years.

Prometric’s Managing Director, Soumitra Roy insists that students who waited till the last day of voucher sale don’t wait till the last day for registering themselves for the exam. I urge candidates who have bought the vouchers but have not registered, to do so as early as possible to avoid any last minute rush or disappointment of not getting preferred dates or location. Registration closes at midnight on Tuesday, 4 October.