The Common Admission Test (CAT) is jointly conducted by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow. Some of the most prestigious Indian Business Schools such as SP Jain, MICA, and T A Pai also take CAT score as an important criteria for their selection process.

Students who have completed their graduatation or who are going to complete their graduation the following year are eligible to apply and appear for the CAT Examination.

The syllabus for the CAT Examination changes every year (or is tentative to change). Generally, questions from the following categories are frequently have appeared in the past: Verbal ability and reasoning, Reading Comprehension, Quantitative skills, Data Interpretation and Analytical and Logical reasoning.

The CAT examination is generally conducted on the second Sunday of December. However, the previous Common Admission Test (CAT) was held on Sunday, November 20, 2005

It is the endeavour of all IIMs that no student be denied opportunity to pursue the Post-Graduate Programme in Management for want of adequate financial resources. Substantial need-based scholarships are available for students belonging to economically disadvantaged families. (Please see the write-up on each IIM in the CAT Bulletin for details.)

As per Government of India requirement 15% and 7½% seats are reserved for SC and ST candidates, respectively. 3% seats are reserved for Persons with Disability (PWD). The three categories of disability are: a) low-vision/blindness, b) hearing impairment, and c) locomotor disability/cerebral palsy.

Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Gwalior, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Patna, Pune, and Vishakhapatnam.

The examinations were conducted in a very strict sense and have the reputation of being one of the best exam conduction and student selection system round the world. One IIM Director once said that he received letters from ministers and high authoritians but he categorically declined them all. This shows that even an IIM Director could not influence the selection process.