For admissions 2012, Great Lakes is adopting two cycles of GD-PI, one in mid-December 2011 and the second in mid-February 2012.

For Cycle 1 GD-PI process, the candidates having scores of following exams can apply: All GMAT takers (2009, 2010, 2011-Taken before 30th of November 2011); All CAT 2010 takers; and All XAT 2011 takers.

For Cycle 2 GD-PI process, the candidates having scores of following exams can apply: All CAT 2011 takers; All XAT 2012 takers; GMAT takers who give their exam between 1st Dec 2011 and 31st Jan 2012.

Explaining the reasons for adopting dual cycle for admissions 2012, Prof. Easwar Krishna Iyer, Admissions Director, Great Lakes said, “For the last two of years, we have been contemplating on having different admission runs for our GMAT aspirants and our CAT / XAT aspirants. CAT / XAT results are once-in-an-year events and come at the beginning of the calendar year. So the students who qualify through these tests are constrained to complete their application forms in all aspects only by January end. Hence the traditional February window suits them perfectly. But the GMAT aspirant is a round-the-year test taker. It makes sense that he is given an independent window to apply. So by delinking the application windows for the two streams, we reduce the unnecessary bottle neck that we face year every year in January end. Also, when the GDPI process gets divided over two cycles, the panelists gets a bit more time to evaluate the candidate’s merits. The aspirants also get more time to showcase his case. Finally, when GMAT and CAT/XAT are pitted against each other in the same cycle, we have to take recourse to complicated normalizing equations to bring the two dissimilar score tracks to the same ranking format.”

“Now with December cycle being highly GMAT 2012 centric and February cycle being CAT/XAT centric, that aspect is taken care of. Finally, a good fraction of GMAT takers are Indian students working abroad. If they come to know of their admission status by December itself, then they can plan their coming back to India better. So, both for the school and for the aspirants the dual cycle works to an advantage,” added Prof. Iyer.

The last date for submission of applications for Cycle 1 is 30 November 2011. For the Cycle 2 the last date for submission is 31 January 2012.

The GD-PI rounds will be held in the following cities during both the cycles: Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad.

The fees for the programme is Rs. 14.5 lakh for single accommodation and Rs. 16 lakh for married students accommodation.