Students from commerce stream make a mark while only 181 medicine graduates pass the test

Engineers continue to bell the CAT

Students from commerce stream make a mark while only 181 medicine graduates pass the test

Jainarayan.Ram@timesgroup.com

11.01.2021

Engineers have been dominating in the list of successful candidates in the Common Admission Test (CAT) every year and the trend has been the same this year too.

Speaking to Education Times, Harshal Lowalekar, convener of CAT 2020, and an associate professor at IIM Indore says, “Of the total candidates appeared this year, 2,928 candidates were from IITs and 61,187 were from an engineering background. Nine candidates have scored 100 percentile out of whom five candidates are from IITs, and the remaining two are from other engineering institutes.”

Engineers have always performed well in the management admission test. In 2019, all ten toppers were from engineering background. “As many as 19 candidates have scored an overall 99.99 percentile in CAT 2020, of which, 16 are from engineering/technology. 18 are male candidates with only one female candidate,” says Lowalekar.

Arpit Singh, who scored 100 percentile in CAT 2016, and a 2nd year PGP Student at IIM-Ahmedabad says, “Engineers, in their initial years, prepare for JEE, which better prepares them mentally to tackle a difficult exam such as CAT.

Secondly, a lot of people who choose engineering are comfortable with numbers, and that gives them an advantage in two sections, Quant and LR/DI.” Arpit is an IIT Delhi p graduate.

A total of 1,90,144 candidates took CAT 2020. The number of male candidates was 1,23,388 and the number of female candidates was 66,755, while only one transgender candidate took the test. Besides the engineers, candidates from the Commerce stream have emerged as the second best to qualify CAT 2020.

“Of the total candidates, 30,233 are from the Commerce stream followed by 19,483 from the Management and 3,769 from the Economics background,” says Lowalekar.

Lowalekar says, 5,026 candidates have appeared from the arts, humanities, law and languages background.

Participation from the Medicine field is not much though. “Only 181 candidates appeared from Medicine,” says Lowalekar.

Among the states, Maharashtra leads the way from where maximum candidates have taken the admission test. “31,189 candidates have appeared from Maharashtra followed by 24,476 from Uttar Pradesh and 15,696 candidates from Delhi,” says Lowalekar.