The world has been making noises about the role the business schools, especially Harvard Business School, played in bringing about the global financial downturn. Doubts on the culpability of the B-schools began a long time back when the Enron being run by Jeffrey Skilling, an HBS product went bankrupt. Then came, John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, and Christopher Cox, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission both products of HBS and mired in controversies.

The road to a good MBA schools is through entrance tests like CAT, XAT, MAT, FMS, IIFT, SNAP and JMET. Of these, CAT is the hardest nut to crack. MBAUniverse.com spoke to CAT 2008 toppers on How to prepare for cracking the CAT entrance exam. In this four part series by Sreetama Datta of MBAUniverse.com, CAT toppers share their success mantras with MBAUniverse.com readers.

Amity Global Business School and Max New York Life have stuck an alliance to offer a one year PG Diploma program in Insurance Sales Management at its Noida, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Indore and Kolkata campuses. After the end of the program, Max New York Life assures placements at managerial level which is a subject to meeting minimum eligibility criteria. The selection will be through a process of career counseling, written test or CAT/GMAT scores and personal interview. The last date of application for the course is June 1, 2009.

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIM K) is organising its annual alumni-fresher meet Sangam 09 on the May 23, 2009 in six cities across India.
Sangam is a platform where the IIM Ks alumni, current students and the incoming batch are brought together. The event brings the past, the present and the future of the institute together for an evening where stories are told, memories relived, friendship rekindled, dreams born and experiences are shared. This mega event is organised annually by the Alumni Committee of the IIM K and has been a huge success.

Sitaram Agarwal is a Commerce graduate from St. Xaviers College, Kolkata. Sitaram is also pursuing the Chartered Financial Analyst program offered by the CFA institute. He is currently a level 2 student of the same. Having appeared for CAT for the second time in 2008, he scored 146 out of 256 which gave him the percentile of 99.53. Sitaram was offered the final admission by IIM A.

MBAUniverse.com talks to Sitaram Agarwal:

Q: Which are the institutes that shortlisted you for GD PI and offered you final admissions?

Mudra Institute of Communications (MICA) annual brand management festival, MICANVAS, recently launched its international event Colloquium, which will be held at the MICA campus in Ahmedabad from November 06, 2009. For the first time, international students will be taken for a week-long programme that will help them experience real India.

After almost eight years of its inception and path-breaking success, Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabads placements hit a bottleneck this year owing to the global meltdown. The Career Advancement Services (CAS) office at the ISB has therefore come up with a unique idea to wade through the turbulent 2009 placement season. For the first time in history of any top-tier Indian B-school, the ISB-CAS has organised a job fair to facilitate interaction between the students and recruiters.

Harvard Business Schools (HBS) recent decision allowing MBA aspirants to submit test scores from either GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) or GRE (Graduate Record Examination) for its general two-year program has opened gates of vast avenues for students all over the globe. This decision is bound to bring about positive effects on the preparation patterns of the Indian student community.

What makes businesses succeed in emerging markets, where the customer profile and demands are quite different from more affluent western markets? Monitor Inclusive Markets, part of the consulting company Monitor Group firms, has released Emerging Markets, Emerging Models, a report analyzing the actual behaviors, economics, and business models of successful market-based solutionsfinancially-sustainable enterprises that address challenges of global poverty.

The CAT 2009 will indeed be heralding a new era in the journey of IIMs & CAT. What are the implications of new computer-based CAT for over 250,000 MBA aspirants across the country? How to prepare for CBT-CAT 09? How are test-preparation/ tutorial institutes adapting their curriculum to the new reality? These are some questions in the minds of all MBA aspirants as they prepare for CAT 2009.