CAT 2010: New IIMs plan to have a common admission system

BANGALORE: Four new IIMs at Ranchi, Rohtak, Raipur and Trichy are working on having a common admission process.
“There is a great synergy when the IIMs come together. We have been talking about it (holding joint interviews and GD); all we need to do now is to sit down and chalk it out,” P Rameshan, director, IIM Rohtak said.

Though the idea of joint interviews and GDs is not entirely new, the older IIMs, especially at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta, have rejected it for the sake of autonomy. In September 2008, a five-member IIM review committee called the IIMs’ practice of separate interviews as “enormously wasteful and unnecessary”. The committee recommended common interviews where all IIMs could be represented.

“The IIMs have a common entrance examination. However, each IIM conducts separate interviews of the students who qualify in the CAT. In future, a student may theoretically have to attend 13 interviews.