SNAP held on December 16

Registrations for Symbiosis National Aptitude (SNAP) Test mandatory for admissions to post-graduate programs in Symbiosis International University opened from today. SNAP will be held on December 16, 2012 from 2 to 4 pm. Aspirants can register online atwww.snaptest.org . The test pattern sees no change from the pattern followed last year. The duration of the same is 120 minutes . Each wrong answer will attract a penalty of 25% negative marks.

Aspirants will need to upload a photograph at the time of registration. The test fee is Rs 1550. Registrations close on November 20 and the results will be announced on January 10, 2013. The test will be conducted in 30 cities across India.

MAT dates announced.

The All India Management Association (AIMA) has announced the dates for the September chapter of Management Aptitude Test (MAT). While the paper pencil test will be conducted on September 2, 2012, the computer based test will be conducted from September 8, 2012 onwards. Surprisingly, only 10% of the registrations so far are for the computer based testing pattern, said Wg Cdr VS Bejoy, Director, Centre of Management Studies.

The online registrations for candidates who wish to appear for the September version of the MAT exam have already started and will be open upto August 13, 2012. The number of days over which the computer based test is conducted will depend upon the final number of registrations. If the number of candidates who register for the online test are limited, they may be accomodated on the same date i.e September 8, 2012.

In addition, if the online regstrations are few, those who have opted for it will have to appear for the paper pencil test on September 2, 2012. However, they will be informed of such a happening well in advance. A list of the test centre cities is also provided to the candidates when they register.

Wg Cdr Bejoy also shared that the September 2012 MAT version will not see any changes in the paper pattern. The two and a half hour long exam will be a 200 mark paper divided into five sections including reading comprehension, data interpretation and quantitative aptitutde.

CMAT conducted twice every year

The AICTE has announced the dates for the second chapter of Common Managament Admission Test (CMAT). While the test will be conducted from September 27, 2012 to October 1, 2012, the registrations for the same will begin from August 3, 2012. We have crunched the total number of days and have increased the number of exam centres to 64 in order to balance this crunch," SS Mantha, Chairman, AICTE.

However, the total number of days over which the test will be conducted is also dependant on the total number of applicants who apply for the exam, Mantha said. If the total number of applications exceed the available slots, AICTE will increase the number of test days.

The Chairman added that from now onwards CMAT will be conducted twice every year. Students will be allowed to appear for the test twice, once during the August-September version and second during the January-February version of the test, if they so feel the need. In case students are appearing for the test twice, the best scores will be considered by the respective colleges for admissions. According to the chairman, this step is being taken to provide students with the opportunity of improving their scores so that they are able to get admission into the institute of their choice.

According to the notification issued by AICTE, the last date for registration for the exam is September 2, 2012. In addition, the hall tickets will be made available by September 15, 2012. Also, the final results are scheduled to be declared by October 17, 2012, the final scorecards will be released by October 17, 2012 and will be made available for printing till November 17, 2012.

Candidates will have to provide three centres of their choice. Last year, there were poblems with regards to centre allocation. However, according to the AICTE notification, the students will be allocated centres on the basis of first come first serve.In addition, actual allotment will be on the basis of actual slots in the centres in the city.

CMAT is a 180-minute test, which has four sections namely Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension and General Awareness. There will be a total of 100 questions, with 25 questions in each section. While there had been few incidents of mishappenings and technical snags in the first chapter of the CMAT, the council is confident that even the second session will be conducted without much of a problem

XAT 2013 includes more questions on humanities

The XLRI Jamshedpur which is conducting XAT on 6 January is planning some surprises this year. According to sources at XLRI, while some changes have been finalised, some are still at the discussion stage.

The management aspirants are generally comfortable with computers but there are still people who are not too familiar with computers and we do not want to discriminate at the entry point itself. We will get to the computer format only when we are sure that there is going to be total satisfaction on all fronts," said the source.

Another change almost finalised, is that the main paper will be extended beyond two hours to two and a half hours, not including the essay. Also, a few more questions on humanities and social sciences will make an appearance this year, though the tenor of the paper will be kept 'analytical'.

"This is being done to get in more gender and discipline diversity," added the source.

Another decision, which is final, is to conduct the exam at more centres. Mangalore and Trichy are definitely on the list and a few others like Kanpur, which were on the list earlier and had been discontinued will come back on the list.

Decisions will also be taken as and when applications start coming in, said the source. "Though 40% of the applications arrive in the last 15 days, we will sieve through the applications, to help us estimate further changes."

XAT 2013 notification out

The Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) 2013 notification is out .

The exam will be conducted on January 6, 2013 and while last year there were 38 centres, this year there are in all 44 centres with additionas like Kanpur, Trichy etc. This is being done to give people in smaller towns the opportunity to take the exam and also to rid the inconvenience of travel, according XLRI officials.

Of the four new centres added last (namely Varanasi, Surat, Amritsar, Mehboobnagar and Vijaywada), Mehboobnagar (Andhra Pradesh) has been struck off the list this year.

While there were four international centres in 2012, this year there are only three, namely Dhaka, Dubai and Kathmandu. Colombo has been struck off the list as well. The decision has been taken keeping in mind the the demand in the four centres.

Additionally, unlike last year, this year the registration process starts a month earlier on August 20. According to XLRI officials, this is to give aspirants more time to register and hopefully make the pool of test takers bigger.

According to admission process on the XLRI website, important dates for XAT 2013 include:

Last Date for XAT registration : November 30, 2012

Receipt of XAT forms : December 05, 2012

Last Date for XLRI registration : December 31, 2012

Receipt of XLRI forms : January 05, 2013

CAT 2012 extension

The Common Admission Test (CAT) which usually spans twenty days will be extended by a day this year. The exam which will begin on October 11 will end on November 6, 2012 and there will be 21 exam days in that period. This obviously gives aspirants an extra day to take the exam.


The one day addition will give more flexibility to the candidates appearing for CAT 2012. The change has also been carried out after receiving feedback from past applicants and others on the exam schedule.


It was being done especially for the benefit of applicants in Kolkata and adjoining areas which will have centres closed because of the durga puja. The day extra is only to give everybody a fair chance to take the exam.

ICICI Business Leadership Programme

ICICI Bank Business Leadership Programme is an initiative by ICICI Bank in partnership with NIIT University to deliver Master of Business Administration (MBA - Finance & Banking) programme with specialisation in finance and banking. It aims to provide opportunities to professionals, who demonstrate an aptitude for the banking industry, to get identified and nurtured as future business leaders. It provides a career leap to business leadership positions and an opportunity to serve corporate India.

Graduates from engineering, IT, finance, economics, law, commerce, statistics etc / Chartered Accountants / Professionals with varied work experience (including shop floor professionals).
Minimum 60 % aggregate in graduation.
Work Experience - Minimum of 3 Years (Full time experience).
Age - Applicants should not exceed 30 years of age (as on 15th April, 2011) Only short-listed applicants will be invited for the selection process.

The selection will be through a multi stage selection process comprising of :
a. Aptitude Test.
b. Group Discussion.
c. Psychometric Profiling.
d. Interview.

The course duration of the programme is two-years and is aligned to the needs of the banking industry. The unique design of the programme focuses on providing a high degree of industry exposure by academic and functional experts from the financial domain and banking industry.The selected applicants will undergo a 2 year intensive programme & internship programmme. Once the selected applicants joined bank after training their gross salary will be more than 15 Lakhs (Cost To Company).