MBA entrance exams are many in India. Common Admission Test (CAT) and Management Aptitude Test (MAT) are the two national level MBA entrance exams. CAT is conducted for admission to top tier B-schools in India including IIM’s and MAT is used by next tier of B-schools for admission. Universities and colleges accept scores of common test like CAT, MAT or conduct their own entrance exams like SP Jain or Symbiosis or IIT’s.

Common Admission Test (CAT)

Amongst all the MBA entrance exams CAT is the foremost entrance exam. To get good percentile, proper attentiveness and hard work is highly desired for while preparing for CAT exam. This is the only gate-way by which A-grade MBA colleges in India accept candidates. Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) is the apex body that conducts CAT entrance exams and the exam dates are also fixed by the same institute.

The IIM’s are considered as the pioneer business schools in the country. They conduct CAT exam in order to screening the applicants who wish to join the institute. Other than the IIM’s, other B-schools that take CAT scores are NIRMA, MICA, the NIT’s, IMT Ghaziabad, SP Jain Mumbai, etc. CAT exam is conducted every year. In order to appear the CAT exam, the applicant should have a degree with at least 50% marks. Final year students can also apply. The entrance exam includes areas such as problem solving, critical reasoning, verbal ability, reading comprehension and data interpretation. The pattern and the number of sections changes each year. Students must clear the cut-offs marks required for each section to get a call from the top institutions. The cut-offs are calculated depending up-on the difficulty of each section. There is negative marking for wrong answers. Time management, practice and speed play an important role in cracking the CAT.

Management Aptitude Test (MAT)

MAT is conducted by AIMA and is approved by MHRD, GOI as a National Entrance Test. In a year there are four MAT exams done in February, May, September and December. More than 500 institutions participate with the MAT exam each year. MAT exam is carry out in written and computer based exams. An average student can easily score more than 80 percentile in MAT exam. But only those candidates who have a score above 95 percentile is taken into those top grade next tier B-schools in India. Some of the colleges accepting MAT score include Alliance Business Academy (Bangalore), Christ College Institute of Management, Bangalore, Indian Institute of Finance (Delhi), IMS (Ghaziabad) and BIMTECH (Noida)

Candidates with a good MAT score can apply to AICTE approved colleges and universities. A degree holder or a final year student awaiting results is eligible to apply for MAT. The test pattern is pretty much the same as that of the CAT. In MAT, there is an additional section on General Awareness. Even though clearing each section is compulsory, the General Awareness section score is not taken while calculating the percentile.

Key differentiators between CAT and MAT

CAT is a mandatory entrance exam conducted by the IIM’s. This is the first stage in the admission process to all the six IIMs which is followed by group discussion and personnel interview. Other than IIMs other business schools also consider the CAT scores as the main eligibility criteria for enrolling students in their management courses. AIMATS conducts the MAT exam and it is known as the National Entrance Test for MBA and similar programs like PGDM. MAT is carried out four times in a year were as CAT is only once every year. The A-graded business schools review CAT scores where as MAT is reviewed by B-grade schools in the country. Both the test evaluates the potential of students by judging their mathematical, verbal and analytical writing skills. However CAT is much tougher to crack compared to MAT as difficulty level of questions is more in the former compared to latter. CAT exam pattern has frequent changes, hence previous exam papers are less useful compared to MAT, where solving previous exam papers can help you to a larger extent.