CAT 2021 Topper Interview: Know How Vinay Kotwal Made it to the 99 Percentilers Club

Sectional cut-off in the CAT exam refers to the section-wise percentiles required by the candidate to make it to the Personal Interview round of the IIMs or other top MBA colleges. The sectional cut-offs are lower than the overall cut-offs of any institute. To understand better, check the table below for sectional CAT cut-offs for IIM Ahmedabad:

For sectional cut-offs of all IIMs, check this article – IIM shortlist and selection criteria

Qualifying CAT cut off percentiles of Iims for Written Ability Test (What) and Personal Interview PI 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: 95 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. 1IIM 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.

CAT cutoffs are usually not announced with the CAT result. The CAT cutoffs are also not released to the public.

They are published after a few days of the result announcement when the IIMs and other colleges start their shortlisting process. The IIMs opens their shortlisting window based on the CAT cut-offs two to three days after the result announcement. The CAT percentile of candidates shortlisted for the Written Ability Test (WAT), Group Discussion (GD), and Personal Interview (PI) can be considered the cut-off for that IIM. For example, if a candidate with a CAT percentile of 99 belonging to the General category is selected for the WAT/GD-PI of IIM Calcutta, then the CAT cut-off for IIM Calcutta is 99 percentile. Only those candidates who make it to the WAT/GD-PI round of IIMs will get to know the cut-offs.