New Delhi: The Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will be held Nov 16.

The seven IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong Sunday notified the date of the CAT exam and said that sale of application forms will start July 14.

The successful candidates will get admission into these top B-Schools of India in the academic year 2009-10. Nearly 2,000 students will get admission to these institutes.

"The candidates must hold a bachelor's degree with at least 50 percent marks (45 percent marks in case of students belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or persons with disability),” a notification said.

The application forms will be issued by Axis Bank branches, selected by the IIMs, across the country. The last day for purchasing application forms from the bank is Aug 8 but aspirants can avail application forms and bulletins from IIMs till Aug 13.

The test will be conducted in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Noida, Patna, Pune and Varanasi.

Last year, over 230,000 students had appeared for the CAT entrance examination.