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.

The road to a good MBA schools is through entrance tests like CAT, XAT, FMS and a few others. Of these, CAT is the hardest nut to crack. Those who clear this hurdle, and secure a place in the hallowed portals of IIMs, surely deserve all kudos.

MBAUniverse.com spoke to CAT 2008 toppers on How to prepare for cracking the CAT entrance exam. In these exclusive series on Road to CAT 2009 by Sreetama Datta of MBAUniverse.com, CAT toppers share their success mantras with MBAUniverse.com readers.

Road to CAT 2009: Step-by-step guide by CAT Toppers (Part 1)

Amit Tandon is an Electronics and Communication Engineer from NSIT (2002 -2006). He is currently working in ST Microelectronics Pvt. Ltd, Greater Noida as Design Engineer. In CAT 2008, Amit scored 145 out of 360 with the percentile of 99.49. He was shortlisted for GD PI by IIM A, B, L, I and K. He was also called for GD/ PI by FMS Delhi & MDI. He got final admission in IIM A, I, K, FMS and MDI. And , not surprisingly, he has chosen to study at IIM A.

Excerpts from interview with Amit Tandon by Sreetama Dutta of MBAUniverse.com:

Professor Andrew Pettigrew, the author of this column, is a faculty at Oxford Universitys Said Business School. He is a leading commentator on issues of leadership and change. Here he sets out the challenges for leaders as they work to emerge from the recession issues relating to responsibility; organisational power; legitimacy; governance; and regulation.

Glen DSilva has maintained the track record of his high scoring from Board exams to CAT with a score and percentile of 161 and 99.83 respectively. Glen also has a 15 months work experience in Lehman Brothers and 8 months work experience in Nomura India. Out of all the institutes from which he got the admission offers, he joined IIM A as he feels its the dream institute for all the CAT aspirants.
MBAUniverse.com spoke to Glen DSilva regarding his preparation for CAT and suggestions for the aspirants.

Excerpts from the chat:

MBAUniverse.com on May 30, 2009 conducted its first round of expert online chats on How to prepare for computer-based CAT 2009. On the first day, Nilesh Sarawate, Director, Test Prep, IMS Learning, gave tips on how to go about the online format of the CAT entrance exam. The chat was hosted on MBAUniverse.com for the benefit of MBA aspirants across the country.