Women, Non-Engineers Among Top CAT Scorers

On Monday, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) declared the results to the common admission test (CAT) which enables candidates to seek admission to top business schools across India.

Among the top 20 scorers in the 100 percentile category were two women and three non-engineering students. Last year too, saw 20 top scorers, but they were all male students. Chhavi Gupta, an M-Tech graduate from IIT-Delhi was one of the two female candidates with a 100th percentile score. “CAT 2017 result is great from a women’s point of view. In recent past, we have not heard of two women among CAT toppers. More women are now opting for management education and appearing for CAT and gradually you may see more women at top B-Schools”, said Gupta.

IIT Madras topper Sai Praneeth Reddy hailing from Andhra Pradesh told India Today, “I am feeling very excited that I have achieved 100 percentile, I hope to perform well in the upcoming rounds of Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) with the same spirit and get into IIM-A”.

Statistics show that in 2017, 78,009 female candidates appeared for CAT as against 76,704 in 2016 and 69,176 in the previous year. A total of 199,632 candidates appeared for the exam which was conducted in November in two shifts, in test centres spread across 140 cities. The number of test takers this year was the highest in the last three years. After the results are announced, IIMs will announce their admission criteria based largely on CAT score, writing ability, group discussions and personal interviews.

India is home to around 20 IIMs that admit over a thousand candidates to their two-year management programs. This will also be the first time that students admitted to the IIMs will be awarded degrees instead of diplomas, as per the Indian Institute of Management Act, 2017