Info on CAT,GRE TOEFL,IELTS,GMAT,PTE Academic

No one should lunge at graduate school. Getting an advanced degree can take years and can cost tens of thousands of dollars if you're not lucky enough to land a fellowship. And no one should begin planning for graduate school in October of their senior year. Putting together a good application—one that can really sell—is the product of years of careful planning and doing the right stuff to get yourself ready for graduate work in your desired field.

Following the biometric system-that requires eye scan and finger print for all foreign students entering UK-started-started a year ago, the student-visa system in the country have been constantly evolving to become more objective and transparent.

According to the tier-4 of the points based system which will be implemented from Tuesday, all education providers that recruit international students in the UK need to be registered with the UK Border Agency. More than 2,100 universities, independent schools and colleges have applied to become licensed sponsors. The institutions are responsible for ensuring that international students comply with the conditions of their visas while they are in the UK.

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE), used by many as an entrance exam to graduate degree programs and increasingly accepted by business schools as an alternative to the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), will be completely revamped for 2011, according to a recent report in the Financial Times.

Billed as the most significant changes in the test’s 60-year history, the revisions are aimed primarily toward making the test more relevant to business students, the FTreports.

At the close of 2009, BusinessWeek devoted an article to the ongoing competition between the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT, and Educational Testing Services (ETS), the publisher of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). According to the BW article, some business school applicants don’t know which exam they should take as part of the process of applying to business school.

In an effort to expand the number of international experiences available to its MBA students, Harvard Business School (HBS) will open a new facility in China later this month, according to a recent report in theFinancial Times. The new facility, in Shanghai, will be the school’s first overseas facility, the FT adds. The move to China is part of an expanded curriculum development program and the launch of a new January term that will include a range of intensive seminars taught in small classroom settings, HBS announced.

By R Shiva Kumar, Director- R&D, Career Launcher (Alumni IIMC-1997)

Prometric, the company conducting the online Common Admission Test (CAT) to the IIMs, has been at the receiving end for the chaos and technological breakdowns plaguing the test this year. Now there are allegations that Prometric leaked the list of candidates registered for CAT to an online coaching portal.

For most people applying the graduate programs, there is no need to choose between these two tests because the admissions department sets the requirements. Business schools require the GMAT for most MBA programs, and graduate schools require the GRE for most advanced studies in sciences, humanities, and art. However, some dual-degree and other special programs offer a applicants a choice of exam. Here are some tips to help you choose the right test to take.

For now, some top-30 schools have decided against accepting the GRE in addition to the GMAT. As a result, one of the first steps for applicants who are trying to decide which exam to take is to determine if the schools that interest them permit GRE scores. For instance, the Booth School has no plans to accept the GRE in the near future. Martinelli,associate dean of student recruitment and admissions at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business explains that the school has a long history with the GMAT, and the admissions committee knows exactly what GMAT scores mean and how to compare them from student to student and year to year. In addition, the GMAT provides security that gives business schools assurance that the person taking the exam is the one whose name is on the application. "The issues of quality and security in a competitive environment are important to me as an admissions professional," says Martinelli. After all, she adds, the MBA is valuable and opens doors to a lot of people. "People will do anything to get into top-tier schools," says Martinelli.