CAT Selection Process 2025: Check IIM Admission Criteria, Cut Offs, Dates and PI Shortlist

IIM Trichy accepts minimum CAT percentile for shortlisting candidates for the Personal Interview round. For IIM Trichy MBA admission 2024, the estimated overall CAT cutoff for the General category students is 92 percentile. Candidates can refer to the table given below to check out the section-wise minimum CAT percentile required for various categories: 

Category	PVRC	PDILR	PQA	Overall percentile rank (PT)
General	70	70	70	92
NC-OBC	45	45	45	74
EWS	40	40	40	70
SC	35	35	35	54
ST	25	25	32.5	40
DAP	25	25	32.5	40

IIM Ranchi final CAT cutoff 2021 was 94 percentile for the General category students. Cosidering the previous year trends, it is estimated that the final CAT cutoff 2024 for IIM Ranchi will be range between 94 and 95 percentile. Apart from IIM Ranchi, candidates can also get admission to IIM Raipur, IIM Trichy and IIM Kashipur, among others with a CAT percentile of 94-95. Refer to the table given below to check out the list of other top B-Schools other than IIMs which provide admission with a final CAT percentile of 95 and above: 

Top MBA College	*CAT Cut Offs (percentile)
SPJIMR, Mumbai	95-99
IMT, Ghaziabad	95-97

*Note: These cut offs are based on previous years' trends.

CAT cut offs are not announced along with the CAT result. The cut offs also not released publicaly. They are known after a few days of result announcement when the IIMs and other colleges start their shortlisting process. The IIMs will open shortlist window basis the CAT cut offs two to three days after the result announcement. The CAT percentile of candidates shortlisted for Written Ability Test (What), Group Discussion GD and Personal Interview, PI can be considered the cut off for that IIM. For example, if a candidate with CAT percentile of 99 belonging from General category is selected for the What/GD-PI of IIM Calcutta, then the CAT cut off for IIM Calcutta is 99 percentile. Only those candidates who will make it to the What/GD-PI round of IIMs will get to know the cut offs.

IIM Mumbai application process is common to PGDIE, PGDIM, PGDISEM and Fellow programmes. Candidates can also apply for more than one course through online mode only and register themselves on the official admission portal of IIM Mumbai. The application fee for every course is INR 1,000 (INR 500 in the case of SC/ ST/ PwD candidates) for candidates from India and SAARC countries. For international candidates, the application fee is 50 USD 50 along with the bank charges (as applicable). This fee can be paid through a payment gateway. The steps to apply are as follows:

• Visit the official website of NITIE. On its homepage, click on ‘Programs’ A drop-down menu opens up.
• Click on the desired programme and further click on ‘Application Process’ against the pop-up that appears against the selected course.
• Read the given instructions carefully and click on ‘Admission Portal’. The application form opens up.
• Fill out the application form carefully. Candidates applying for the Fellow programme need to additionally submit a 1,500-word research proposal.
• Pay the application fee in online mode using a payment gateway through debit card/ credit card/ net banking.

IIM Nagpur offers admission to management courses on the basis of valid CAT scores. For IIM Nagpur MBA admission, students need to meet both the overall CAT cut off percentile and the sectional cut offs. IIM Nagpur does not release CAT cutoffs in the public domain and is exclusively accessible only via account login to candidates who have appeared for the exam. However, the institute has released the qualifying CAT cutoff 2024 for different categories, wherein for the general category students, the overall CAT percentile is 95. Talking about the cutoff trends, candidates can refer to the table below. Considering the past three years cutoff, IIM Nagpur saw fluctuating trends for its MBA course.

Year	Overall CAT Percentile (General AI Quota)
2023	95
2022	94
2021	95

 

Qualifying CAT is a must-have criteria for admission to IIMs and other top Management colleges in India. A well-planned strategy along with a correct approach of preparation is essential for admission to MBA, especially in the top MBA colleges in India. A prep strategy that will help you ace the CAT exam for admission to IIM Ahmedabad is as follows:

• Check the CAT syllabus and exam pattern
• Choose the right reference book
• Solve as many CAT Mock Tests as possible. Download FREE practice questions and answers!
• Solve previous year's CAT question papers for thorough revision to reduce the scope of mistakes

• Read books, editorials, newspapers, and journals to improve your vocabulary and reading skills. Check below section-wise questions and answers:

VARC questions with answers

DI & LR questions with answers

Quantitative Aptitude questions with answers

Read more about the CAT preparation strategy.

IIM Visakhapatnam accepts CAT scores for admission to the management courses. However, the institute does not release the CAT cutoffs in the public domain and is exclusively accessible only via account login to candidates who have appeared for the exam. IIMs accept both sectional and overall cutoff for admission. CAT 2024 cutoff will be tentatively declared in the month of Jan. Considering the previous year trends, the final CAT cutoff 2024 is expected to be in the range between 92-94 for IIM Visakhapatnam. 

The estimated qualifying CAT cutoff 2024 is 80 for the General category students. 

Both IIM Jammu and IIM Sambalpur accept CAT scores for admission to the management courses. IIMs do not release the final admission cutoff publicly and is accessible via account login for students who appeared in the CAT entrance exam. However, the institutes released the qualifying CAT percentile 2024 for admission, wherein the overall cutoff is 95, while the sectional cutoff is 75 for IIM Jammu. For IIM Sambalpur, the overall and sectional cutoffs are 90 and 65, respectively, for the General AI quota (male). 

Talking about the NIRF Ranking 2024 under the Management category, IIM Jammu ranked 42, whereas IIM Sambalpur secured the 50th position. Candidates can refer to the table given below to compare both IIM Jammu and IIM Sambalpur, considering several aspects such as total tuition fees, average package, and CAT cutoff 2024 to make a clear decision:

Parameters	IIM Jammu	IIM Sambhalpur
NIRF Management Ranking 2024	42	50
Qualifying CAT cutoff 2024 (overall)	95	90
Tuition fee for MBA	12.5 L - 30.9 L	18.5 L
Average package	INR 15.48 LPA	INR 14.21 LPA

Once released, CAT result 2024 will be available on the official website of IIMCAT. Candidates, who appeared for CAT 2024 can check the result and download the scorecard by using their CAT login IDs and password. To check the CAT 2024 result, candidates need to follow the below-mentioned steps:

Step 1: Visit the official website of CAT 2024 at iimcat.ac.in

Step 2: Click on the login button mentioned under the 'CAT 2024 scorecard download'

Step 3: Enter CAT 2024 ID and password and press 'Enter'

Step 4: Click on the 'scorecard' tab

Step 5: Download the CAT result 2024 PDF

IIM Trichy accepts minimum CAT percentile for shortlisting candidates for the Personal Interview round. For IIM Trichy MBA admission 2024, the estimated overall CAT cutoff for the General category students is 92 percentile. Candidates can refer to the table given below to check out the section-wise minimum CAT percentile required for various categories: 

Category	PVRC	PDILR	PQA	Overall percentile rank (PT)
General	70	70	70	92
NC-OBC	45	45	45	74
EWS	40	40	40	70
SC	35	35	35	54
ST	25	25	32.5	40
DAP	25	25	32.5	40

IIM Shillong cutoff percentile 2023 will be released after CAT 2023 exam is conducted and the results have been released. Candidates seeking admission to IIM Shillong can check out the minimum CAT cut off for the previous year IIM Shillong admissions in the table below.

Category	VARC percentile	DILR percentile	QA percentile
DA (D)	50	50	50
ST (T)	50	50	50
SC (C )	60	60	60
EWS (E )	75	75	75
Others (General)	75	75	75

Qualifying CAT cut off percentiles of Iims for Written Ability Test (What) and Personal Interview PI for the batch of 2023-25 are listed below. Candidates who MET the qualifying CAT cut off, were eligible for What-PI round. These qualifying CAT cut offs are for General Category. The cut offs for Reserved category students are lower: 1. IIM Ahmedabad: 85 percentile 2. IIM Bangalore: 85 percentile 3. IIM Calcutta: 85 percentile 4. IIM Lucknow: 90 percentile 5. IIM Kozhikode: 85 percentile 6. IIM Indore: 90 percentile 7. IIM Udaipur: 93 percentile 8. IIM Shillong: 75 percentile 9. IIM Trichy: 93 percentile 10. IIM Visakhapatnam: 80 percentile 11. IIM Rohtak: 95 percentile 12. IIM Nagpur: 85 percentile 13. IIM Jammu: 93 percentile 14. IIM Ranchi: 90 percentile 15. IIM Sirmaur: 92 percentile 16. IIM Bodhgaya: 93 percentile 17. IIM Sambalpur: 93 percentile 18. IIM Kashipur: 94 percentile 19. IIM Raipur: 93 percentile 20. IIM Amritsar: 90 percentile For complete details of IIM selection and admission process read this article: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/iim-shortlist-selection-admission-criteria-blogId-18787.

IIM CAP is a common selection process for newer Iims. Under the CAP candidates eligible for admission to the nine new Iims - IIM Bodhgaya, IIM Kashipur, IIM Sambalpur, IIM Sirmaur, IIM Jammu, IIM Ranchi, IIM Trichy and IIM Udaipur are shortlisted for What-PI round by a single IIM, the one who is given the responsibility to conduct the CAP round in a particular academic year. CAT cut offs, admission parameters and their weightage are same for all CAP Iims. The participating Iims send the list of candidates shortlisted by them for the What-PI process to the institute conducting CAP. The CAP conducting IIM conducts the What-PI round for all the participating Iims. The IIM CAP conducting institute then share the What-PI scores and results of the candidates with the participating institutes. Those institutes then prepare the final shortlist for admission. Those who are selected for admission are informed by the Iims via email. The offer of admission is sent to selected candidates which they have to accept within the given time limit. For more details of IIM CAP, read this article: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/what-is-iim-cap-know-admission-process-selection-criteria-and-participating-institutes-blogId-51225.

Written Ability Test or WAT is a 30-minute essay-writing test on topics from fields like socio-political, economic and business affairs, sports, etc. PI refers to Personal Interview held on the same day as WAT. The WAT-PI round of all IIMs is conducted after CAT result declaration. The shortlisting for WAT-PI is done on the basis of CAT cut off, which is fixed by the institutes. The IIM cut offs range between 95-100 percentile, which means candidates scoring in this range get shortlisted for WAT-PI. The CAT cut offs for Reserved category students are lower. In the WAT round, candidate has to write a short essay of about 250 words on a given topic. The topics can be from any field. For example, one candidate at IIM Ahmedabad got 'writer was facing some health issues, he got cured because of laughing' as a WAT topic this year. The purpose of Written Ability Test is to assess the candidate's general awareness, clarity of ideas and ability to make a convincing argument. The Personal Interview or PI is all about personality assessment. In PI, a panel of professors and admission officials meet the candidates one by one. They assess the on their knowledge, confidence, communication skills, managerial skills and leadership qualities, etc.

The IIM Indore cut off is usually around 95-97 percentile. The overall qualifying CAT cut off percentile for What-PI shortlisting is 90 for General category students. For EWS category too, the minimum qualifying CAT cut off is 90 percentile. However, for NC-OBC candidates the minimum qualifying cut off it is 80 percentile whereas for SC/ST candidates, it is 60 and 45 percentile, respectively. Given below are the sectional and overall qualifying CAT cut offs for Indore PGP course. General category: 80 VARC 80 DILR 80 Quantitative Aptitude 90 (Overall) NC-OBC category: 70 VARC 70 DILR 70 Quantitative Aptitude 80 (Overall) SC category: 55 VARC 55 DILR 55 Quantitative Aptitude 60 (Overall) ST category: 40 VARC 40 DILR 40 Quantitative Aptitude 45 (Overall) PwD category: 40 VARC 40 DILR 40 Quantitative Aptitude 45 (Overall) Click here for detailed IIM Indore admission and selection criteria: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/iim-indore-shortlist-admission-criteria-blogId-19051.

Qualifying CAT cut off percentiles of an IIM is the minimum percentile (sectional as well as overall) required by candidates to be eligible for the Written Ability Test (What) and Personal Interview PI round. These are only eligibility score and not the score for selection. The final CAT cut off percentiles are the scores on the basis of which a candidate is actually selected for the What-PI round. The qualifying CAT cut offs are released publically before the CAT exam and result as a part of selection criteria for the MBA/PGP batch of that year. The qualifying cut offs for CAT are release category wise - General, NC/OBC. General-EWS, SC/ST, PwD. The qualifying cut offs percentiles of General category candidate is higher than then rest. The final CAT cut offs are not released publically. The cut offs are estimate on the basis of candidate's selection for What-PI. The final CAT cut offs for General category candidate is also higher than then rest.

The qualifying CAT cut off for IIM Ahmedabad is 85 percentile for 2023-25 batch. However, the final CAT cut off for IIM Ahmedabad will go up to 99-100 percentile. The qualifying CAT cut off is the minimum score required to be eligible for shortlisting of IIM Ahmedabad PI round. The score on which a candidate is selected is called the final cut off and is much higher than the qualifying cut off. Given below is the qualifying CAT cut offs for IIM Ahmedabad: General/EWS: 70 VARC 70 DILR 70 (QA), 80 (Overall) NC-OBC/transgender: 65 VARC 65 DILR 65 (QA), 75 (Overall) SC: 60 VARC 60 DILR 60 (QA), 70 (Overall) ST: 50 VARC 50 DILR 50 (QA), 60 (Overall PwD (General/ EWS, NC-OBC/transgender, SC): 60 VARC 60 DILR 60 (QA), 70 (Overall) PwD (ST): 50 VARC 50 DILR 50 (QA), 60 (Overall). .

There are quite a few MBA colleges who accept CAT score of 80 percentile and above for admission. The admission process for these colleges include group discussion and Personal Interview . Fore School of Management Goa Institute of Management International Management Institute, Delhi Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal Indian Institute of Management, Visakhapatnam Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Chennai Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli Praxis Business School, Kolkata Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management development & Research, Bangalore Shiva Institute of Management Studies, Ghaziabad Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research TA Pai Management Institute Trinity College for Management and Technology, Ghaziabad Click on this link for more: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/colleges-accepting-cat-scores-range-80-to-90-percentile-blogId-11981.

A good number of private MBA colleges accept CAT score of 70 percentile in CAT. We have listed some of the colleges in which admission is possible with 70 percentile. Amity University AIMS Institutes (AIMS), Bangalore Amrita School of Business - Bangalore Acharya Bangalore B-School Asian Business School (ABS), Noida Amrita School of Business, Kochi Bengal Institute of Business Studies (BIBS), Kolkata Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Christ Institute of Management, Pune Doon Business School (DBS), Dehradun Eastern Institute For Integrated Learning In Management, Kolkata FOSTIIMA Business School, Delhi International Institute of Business Studies, Noida International School of Business and Media (ISB&M) Bangalore JK Lakshmipat University-Institute of Management, Jaipur National University (JNU), Jaipur JRE Group of Institutions (JRE), Greater Noida Lotus Business School, Pune Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar MATS University, Raipur IIKM Business School, Calicut IILM Institute for Higher Education, Delhi For full list, click here: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/colleges-accepting-cat-scores-range-70-to-80-percentile-blogId-11956.

There are a number of private MBA colleges that accept CAT score of 60+ percentile for admission. We have listed some of the colleges below: AIMS Institutes (AIMS), Bangalore Amrita School of Business - Bangalore Acharya Bangalore B-School Asian Business School (ABS), Noida Amrita School of Business, Kochi Bengal Institute of Business Studies (BIBS), Kolkata Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Christ Institute of Management, Pune Doon Business School (DBS), Dehradun Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management, Kolkata FOSTIIMA Business School, Delhi International Institute of Business Studies, Noida International School of Business and Media (ISB&M) Bangalore International School of Business & Media, Kolkata IIKM Business School, Calicut IILM Institute for Higher Education, Delhi For full list, click here: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/colleges-accepting-cat-scores-range-60-to-70-percentile-blogId-11984.

The CAT score required for IIM Sambalpur MBA is 92 percentile. The aforementioned cutoff is the IIM Sambalpur MBA 2024 qualifying cut off and not the final cut off. The IIM Sambalpur final cut off is yet to be released. The category wise CAT 2022 qualifying cutoff for IIM Sambalpur MBA is mentioned below:

Category	Quantitative Aptitude (QA)	Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR)	Verbal & Reading Comprehension (VRC)	Total Percentile  (Overall)
General	70	70	70	92
EWS	40	40	40	70
NC-OBC	45	45	45	74
SC	35	35	35	54
ST	32.5	32	25	40
DAP	32.5	32	25	40

Click here, to check which College you are eligible for according to your CAT Percentile 

DMS (Department of Management Studies) IIT Madras does not have a specific CAT cut-off for admissions to their MBA programme. The selection process for DMS IIT Madras involves considering the candidate's performance in CAT, followed by a Written Ability Test (What), Group Discussion (GD), and Personal Interview (PI). However, candidates with a percentile of 95 and above in CAT are generally considered highly competitive for admissions to DMS IIT Madras. However, it's important to note that CAT score is not the only factor considered for admissions, and the final selection also depends on the candidate's overall profile, including academic qualifications, work experience, extracurricular activities, and performance in the What, GD, and PI.

Based on the previous year's cutoffs, here is the approximate CAT cut off for the MBA Rural Management and MBA HRM programs at XIMB: - MBA Rural Management: The CAT cut off for the MBA Rural Management programme at XIMB may be around 85 to 90 percentile. - MBA HRM: The CAT cut off for the MBA HRM programme at XIMB may be around 90 to 95 percentile. It is important to note that the cutoff may vary from year to year based on various factors such as the number of seats available, the number of applicants, and the overall performance of the applicants. Additionally, XIMB also considers various other factors such as academic background, work experience, and performance in the selection process including Group Discussion GD and Personal Interview PI before making admission decisions. It is always advisable to check with the college's admission office for the latest and most accurate information on the CAT cutoff for the MBA Rural Management and MBA HRM programs at XIMB.

The selection process of VGSOM admission to MBA is a two step process. The step one is on the basis of CAT scores where candidates are shortlisted for the further process of Personal Interview. For  VGSOM there is no sectional cutoff, however, candidates must meet the overall MBA4 cutoff of 90 percentile for General category, 80 for NC-OBC Category and 75 each for SC, ST and PwD categories. The final VGSOM cutoff for the final admission is based on cumulative scores of the application ratings, performance score in CAT and performance of the candidate in Personal Interview.