40,000 candidates in 12 countries back new examining system administered with a personal touch India's premier management school, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), has crossed a milestone by successfully shifting its prestigious entrance test to a computer-based test format. Pearson VUE, the global leader in administering CBT and the partner selected by NMIMS to take the NMAT on-line, credits the smooth candidate experience to its proven time-tested global processes. Pearson VUE, which conducts more than 7 million tests in 165 countries, said no test batch was cancelled due to technical or infrastructure issues, a notable first in India. As part of its contingency plan, Vue had asked candidates to keep February 9th free in case their test needed to be re-scheduled. But with a smooth roll-out on each of the ten days of testing, the contingency was not invoked. Minor disruptions were managed quickly by the NMAT administrators on-site.
Amid widespread recent public debate, NMIMS's maiden move into on-line testing restores students' and academic confidence in the digital process. By attracting more candidates to sit the exam on-line, coupled with a largely error-free roll-out, NMIMS's expectations were easily surpassed. The CBT adopted by NMIMS enabled Pearson VUE to quickly respond to potential technology glitches, which would not have been possible in a paper and pencil single sitting format. Each test session had a unique question paper to ensure standardization, test security and integrity. For NMIMS, Pearson VUE will follow standard global equating norms and practices to create comparable scores from multiple test forms. The NMAT results will be posted on the college website on March 2, 2010. The test results will be used for admission to NMIMS' management programs. The management programs by NMIMS include MBA Core (300 seats); MBA Actuarial Sciences (30 seats); Capital markets (30 seats); Banking (30 seats); Pharma Management (60 seats); MBA Part Time (240 seats) and Executive Doctoral Program (25 seats).
