CAT topper from IIT-Madras-2010

CAT topper from IIT-Madras

Shyam Ranganathan

Varun Mangamoori is already on the IIM-Ahmedabad waitlist

‘I did not expect to be in the 100th percentile’

Server crashes after rush to access results



Varun Mangamoori

CHENNAI: Varun Mangamoori, a student of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, has emerged the topper in the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2009, having scored in the 100th percentile in the results announced on Sunday.

Of the waitlists for the interviews to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) announced, he is already on the IIM-Ahmedabad waitlist but not on the IIM-Shillong one, Mr. Mangamoori told The Hindu .

On a day when the server played truant and many reported problems accessing the results website, Mr. Mangamoori, a final year dual degree student in the Department of Engineering Design, said he was surprised to see the result as he had done “reasonably well, but did not expect to be in the 100th percentile.”

A native of Hyderabad, where he did his schooling before joining IIT-Madras, Mr. Mangamoori said he has also applied to universities in the United States including MIT, the University of Michigan, University of Texas and Columbia.

“I have applied for MS/PhD in Operations Research, which I took as my minor, and am waiting for the results,” he said. Mr. Mangamoori also has a job offer from ITC and has to think about that as well now, he added, even as he prepares for the interview process for the IIMs to begin.

IIT-Madras has done well in CAT 2009, with two of Mr. Mangamoori’s friends scoring in the 99.96th percentile and another in the 99.7th percentile, he said.

Earlier, the results were announced in the afternoon, but many complaints said they were not accessible. S. Balasubramaniam, director, T.I.M.E, Chennai, said the servers were down till 6.45 p.m., after which results came back online. But complaints over the servers being slow persisted, he said.

Problems in the new online examination process had earlier forced a re-examination for affected students. There were also delays in the announcement of results, initially scheduled for the third week of February.

Along with the IIMs, a number of other management institutions will be using CAT scores for their admissions process.

Manas Dasgupta reports from Ahmedabad:

The announcement of the results of the first online CAT on Sunday ended the anxiety of over 2.1 lakh candidates who appeared for the exam in November-December 2009.

While the results were posted on the official CAT website, IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Shillong have already put up the selection list.

An IIM-A spokesman said that unlike previous years, no separate score card would be sent to candidates either by post or e-mail this year. A print out from the website would be considered the official result. Candidates were asked to call the toll-free number for further clarifications. But a heavy rush to open the website compelled the IIM authorities to close it down for over three hours on Sunday evening.

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