Faculty of Management Studies, one of top management institutes in India, has for the first time admitted students through the Common Admission Test (CAT) this year. Raj S Dhankar, dean of FMS, is certain about the quality of students selected through the exam. In an interview with MBAUniverse, he also shares his thoughts about inadequate faculty and the plans to make FMS an internationally competitive B-school.
Excerpts from the interview:

To get aspirants doubts and queries answered regarding XAT 2013, the registration process for which is currently underway with the examination being scheduled in the first week of January, MBAUniverse.com conducted a Live Chat with Prof. Vishwa Ballabh, admission chairperson of XLRI, on September 12.

Aspirants asked questions not only on XAT but also on the admission process of XLRI.

Excerpts from the chat:

As the economic slowdown continues to haunt placements at majority of B-school campuses in India, job-seeking MBA graduates might be getting more opportunities to work in smaller and tier II cities than the major metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai Banglaore.

As a majority of CAT 2012 test centres in metro cities run out of capacity despite a week still remaining for registration, Prof SSS Kumar, convener of CAT 2012, has assured applicants that there will be no dearth of capacity for CAT takers.

Speaking to MBAUniverse.com on the rush for CAT registration, Prof Kumar said there is enough capacity at CAT test centres and all the applicants will be accommodated to appear for the test. He, however, said late comers might not get the centre of their choice.

Top B-schools such as FMS, University of Delhi, FORE School of Management, New Delhi and Institute of Management Technology on September 12 (Wednesday) announced the admission process for the academic session 2013-15. Besides, LIBA Chennai and Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna (CIMP) have also started their admission process recently.

Though there is still a week remaining for the CAT 2012 registration and about two more months for XAT 2013 registration, top B-schools, interestingly, have already initiated the admission process.
FMS, University of Delhi

How Indian companies can become multinationals? What are the challenges pertaining to human resources for a global company and what are the ways to address these issues?

Top CXOs and experts will share their insight on the challenges and opportunities for Indian companies in becoming global players at the 11th AIMA National HRM Summit to be held on 14-15 September in New Delhi.

Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) is one of the most popular MBA entrance exams for admission in XLRI and 108 other top B-schools. XAT 2003 is scheduled on Sunday, January 6, 2013, and the registration process will continue till November 30, 2012.

Recently, MBAUniverse.com reported the changes that will be incorporated in this years XAT paper as informed by XLRI which conducts the entrance test.

The International Management Institute (IMI), New Delhi, has become the fifth B-school in India to get accreditation from globally renowned accreditation agency AMBA Association of MBAs.

Other Indian B-schools with AMBA accreditation are IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, MDI Gurgaon and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR).

The institute received an official confirmation on the same last week. Speaking to MBAUniverse.com, Dr Pritam Singh, director general, IMI, said, We received the official AMBA accreditation letter on Friday, September 7.

XAT exam does not have a fixed pattern in terms of the number of questions or any particular area of testing. Though the basic three areas -- quantitative ability & data interpretation, verbal & logical ability and analytical reasoning -- remain constant, experimentations go on in order to make the exam more innovative and diversified.

Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (MICA) has announced that it will be accepting XAT scores besides CAT and GMAT scores for admissions to its 20th batch of PG diploma in management (communications) program.

On the official website of XAT, MICA has been named as one of 106 institutes accepting XAT scores for admissions to their respective management programmes for the academic session 2013-2015.

Till last year, MICA used to consider only CAT (for Indian nationals) and GMAT (for International applicants) for its admissions through MICAT.