IIM Sambalpur Admission Criteria 2026-2028 for MBA: Check CAT 2025 Cut Off and PI Process

The answer to this question of whether an average student can get into IIM can be both yes and no depending on the definition of an average student.

• Based on Academics (Class 10/ Class 12/ Graduation): While a student with average scores in Class 10, Class 12 and graduation with a good CAT score certainly has good chances of getting a call from IIM-A, chances are less for someone with an average CAT score.
• Based on student category (General or Reserved): While it is tough for a General category average student to grab a seat at IIM due to high score requirements, a reserved category student can get admission being at average scores as well.
• Based on past work experience, diversity and other factors: Gender and academic diversity is also a factor on which students are shortlisted at IIM. IIMs judge the past academic category based on the degree obtained by the students before MBA and then a weightage is allotted based on that. For Engineers, the percentage for scoring the highest marks is higher as compared with other streams
• Performance in selection rounds: Once you make it to the final selection rounds, i.e., AWT/PI process, it can be considered a fresh start. At this stage, students can forget their past average-ness but definitely require good grasp over the past subjects as academics-related questions are asked in the interview.

Based on the above factors, it can be considered that while getting into top Management institutes, such as IIM is extremely tough, the past performance, CAT performance, student category and a lot of factors can be the reasons for a student to receive that final call.

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.

The CAT cut offs for IIM Bangalore hovers between 97-100 percentile. The qualifying CAT cut off required for being eligible for IIM Bangalore's Written Ability test (What) and Personal Interview PI is 85 percentile for General category students, whereas for SC candidates, it is 70 percentile. For ST candidates, it is 65 percentile and for PwD candidates it is 60 percentile. Given below are the sectional and overall qualifying CAT cut offs for IIM Bangalore.

• General category: 80 VARC 75 DILR 75 Quantitative Aptitude 85 (Overall)
• NC-OBC category: 75 VARC 65 DILR 65 Quantitative Aptitude 75 (Overall)
• EWS category: 70 VARC 65 DILR 65 Quantitative Aptitude 75 (Overall)
• SC category: 65 VARC 60 DILR 60 Quantitative Aptitude 70 (Overall)
• ST category: 55 VARC 55 DILR 55 Quantitative Aptitude 65 (Overall)
• PwD category: 50 VARC 50 DILR 50 Quantitative Aptitude 60 (Overall)

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.

Check the table below for CAT cut offs for IITs, on the basis of which candidates are selected for their MBA programmes: