Update: Great Lakes to conduct its own test for admissions 2010 on Feb 14

Great Lakes Institute of Management, (Great Lakes), Chennai becomes the second institute to come up with alternatives to accepting the CAT scores for their admission process 2010 after Mudra Institute of Communication, Ahmedabad. Professor T N Swaminathan, Director Admissions, External Relations & Associate Professor – Marketing, Great Lakes, Chennai told PaGaLGuY that apart from accepting GMAT (including 2010) and CAT (2008 and 2009) scores, they will also accept XAT 2010 scores and in addition, conduct their own admission test in the middle of February. According to Swaminathan, the decision to introduce alternate admission procedure was taken due to the ongoing irregularities in CAT, which includes the PIL filed against CAT convener, Director, IIM Bangalore and Principal Secretary, Union Human Resources Development Ministry.

See update below.

Hence, the updated admission process for Great Lakes, Chennai will be as under:

a) If you had planned to use your existing GMAT or CAT ’08 score, you should have applied on January 3, 2010.

b) Any candidate who plans to applying through either his CAT 2009, GMAT 2010 or XAT 2010 score can apply to the institute by February 7, 2010.

c) Candidates who do not wish to apply through their CAT 2009 score and have not taken XAT or GMAT can take the Great Lakes’ admission test. As of now, the test will be held in the middle of February 2010 and will be an online test administered in six to seven centers across India. A nominal fee (yet to be decided by the institute) will be levied for the test; more details will be up on the institute’s website shortly. Swaminathan says, “Prospective students are advised to look out for formal communication on our website, other portals and press over coming days. Please do not hesitate to speak to any of our admission committee members for any clarification you may require.” Those who wish to take the test will need to apply before February 7, 2010 and register for the test.

As candidates will apply through a plethora of entrance tests scores in the 2010 admission process at Great Lakes, Chennai, a question of standardization of scores might occur. According to Swaminathan, standardization of scores will be taken care of by using advanced statistics methods and the candidates need not worry as all scores will enjoy equal weightage. However, the breakup and the standardization procedures or guidelines will be kept confidential and will not be disclosed to students.

Update: The entrance examination for Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, GREAT 2010, will be held on February 14, 2010 and will be an online exam of a duration of 2 hours and 15 minutes. The test format and score normalization will be based on the pattern of the CAT according to Professor T N Swaminathan, Director Admissions, External Relations and Associate Professor – Marketing.

The test date of GREAT 2010 coincides with AIMS Test for Management Admissions (ATMA). To accommodate such candidates, Professor Swaminathan said, “GREAT 2010 will be held in the morning slot at around 10:00 AM. As ATMA is scheduled in the afternoon, candidates can take it after GREAT 2010.” He added that he was unable to shift the examination to an earlier or a later date as the GD-PIs for admissions 2010-2011 are scheduled to start from February 26, 2010.