CAT 2023: Know about exam date, registration process, pattern, eligibility and more

CAT 2023: Common Admission Test is a national level management entrance exam conducted by IIMs for admission in post graduate management programmes. CAT is conducted every year and it is one of the toughest MBA exams held in India. Around 2 lakh students appear for this exam every year just to get admission to MBA/PGDM courses offered by IIMs and other CAT colleges.

This year Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) will conduct the CAT 2023 exam on the last Sunday of November 2023. The official notification of CAT 2023 exam will most likely to be released by IIM Lucknow in July. After that the registration process will start in August. The students who are wishing to appear for the CAT 2023 exam can apply at the CAT official website, iimcat.ac.in. After the exam, IIMs and other participating colleges shortlist the students based on their CAT score. 

Eligibility for CAT 2023:

Candidates, who are willing to appear for the CAT 2023 examination, should know all the details related to eligibility. Students can check the eligibility criteria here just to avoid last minute cancellation of their application form. The eligibility criteria is given below.

  1. The candidate should have a Bachelor’s Degree in any discipline from a recognized university. 
  2. The candidates should have a minimum of 50% marks in aggregate in their graduation. For reserved category, it is 45%.
  3. The students who are in their final year of their graduation can also appear for CAT 2023 exam, but they have to complete their graduation before the admission date.
  4. There are no specifications required for work experience. Candidates with professional degrees like CA/ICWA and CS are also eligible for CAT 2023.

Important documents for CAT 2023:

Candidates can check the important documents required for CAT exam here. Students are advised to keep these documents ready before the registration so that they don’t face any problem during registration process.

  1. Graduation mark sheet
  2. Photo in .JPG/.JPEG format
  3. Signature in .JPG/.JPEG format
  4. NC-OBC/SC/ST Certificate in PDF format
  5. PwD/DA Certificate in PDF format

Process for filling the CAT 2023 application form:

Once the notification of the CAT 2023 exam is out, the registration has to be done online on the official website of IIMCAT. Students can fill the application form in a few easy steps. The steps are mentioned below.

  1. Firstly students should register themselves on the official website of CAT.
  2. Click on the registration tab and fill in all the required information like name, parents name, email, phone number etc.
  3. You’ll receive a unique registration id on your registered contact number.
  4. Now login again on the portal with your id and fill in all the details.
  5. Students will have to fill out following details in the form. These are Father’s name, Mother’s name, Date of birth, gender, nationality, category, address, graduation percentage, 10th and 12th marks. If student has previous work experience, he/she can fill that too.
  6. Upload all the required documents.
  7. Candidates will have to pay online for the exam. CAT form fees for various categories are given below.

For General/ EWS/ NC-OBC, form fee is INR 2300

For SC/ ST/PWD category, the fee is INR 1150. 

CAT 2023 Pattern:

CAT exam pattern is usually divided into 3 slots- VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension), DILR (Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning) and QA (Quantitative Ability). Students have to get high score in each of the sections to get selected by IIMs (Indian Institute of Management). Apart from the high score in the exam, work experience and good academic profile also help the students to get into top IIM College. 

Other exam pattern details are given below.

  1. The mode of the exam is computer based.
  2. The test duration is 120 minutes and it is divided into three sessions. Duration of each session of CAT is 40 minutes.
  3. Total no. of questions asked is 60. The type of questions is MCQs and non MCQs.
  4. 24 questions are asked from VARC section, 22 from QA and 20 from DILR.
  5. Students get -1 for each wrong answer.
  6. +3 marks are given for each correct answer.