Is CAT fever off ?

I remember the year 2007 when I appeared for the most mysterious exam in India - CAT. There were so many rumors about CAT, coaching Institutes were in the competition of predicting format of the exam, students were spending days and night in finding new approaches for the questions etc. And on the D day every person connected with this CAT thing, involved in analysis of the paper, calculating scores, predicting calls from the institutes. The Atmosphere & leverage of the exam was at its best. "Expect the unexpected" - was really true for CAT and yes, so many lives were also dedicated to CAT. People were taking CAT for the years in the hope of getting admission to the most prestigious B Schools - IIMs. We could literally feel the fever of CAT exactly like fever of football world cup in Europe or cricket world cup in India a month before the exam.

Now situation is different. From the year 2009 CAT went online. Exam was conducted in the span of a week and CAT 2010 was conducted in the span of a month. During both the CATs results were bizarre and not matching upto expectations of the candidates. Moreover IIMs had lessen weightage of the CAT scores in issuing GD & PI calls. They come up with the approach of "profile based calls". Did they lost faith in their own entrance exam? Now, it's impossible for some of the candidates to get IIM calls even though they score 100%tile in CAT...!! This has decreased number of applicants in year 2010 by 10% approx. This number expected to decrease more for CAT 2011. Now, applicants have less faith in CAT, so they are turning towards other national level entrance exams or state level entrance exams. A strong profile means you have to be upto the mark in each parameter mentioned by them. If a candidate has a downfall let's say in his graduation scores or SSC or HSC scores, it will be die hard game for him to get an IIM call with 100%tile CAT score...!! Question here is why academics are more important for management career where we have examples of college drop out business leaders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates etc. Well, they must have something good for their institutes in there mind in keeping all these parameters for shorlisting criteria. Now, CAT pattern is fixed. Difficulty level of the questions is easy to medium. So, somewhere passion for the exam has died. It's quite right that due to all these matters number of applicants for CAT decreasing every year.

CAT was religion for most of the IIM aspirants exactly like cricket in India. But few candidates have lost their faith from their religion(CAT) and moved towards other career options. So, in nutshell, Is CAT fever is off now? Will admission in IIM be only a mere dream for many of the candidates? Will changing methods be acceptable to the candidates in future? Answers are speculative. But yes, students have to pull their socks from schooling itself if they wish to go to IIMs. Indeed, "Life is a race, if you halt at any point, you will be lost in the shadow of failure."