IIM Waitlist Movement Analysis: Check Past Trends & Meaning
Common Admission Test 2025 ( CAT )
Exam On - 30 Nov '25
Every year, IIM waitlist movement creates a hype among the students who applied for admission in the IIMs. Check this article to know the meaning and past trends of IIM waitlist movement.
IIM Waitlist Movement: MBA admissions in India comes with a dream for admission into IIM. CAT preparation requires the candidates to study round the clock throughout the year to meet CAT cut offs and secure a seat in MBA/PGDM courses offered by these central government-owned public business schools. However, all the test takers are unable to get into an IIM, irrespective of their hard work. Some of these test takers miss a chance of MBA admission into IIM even after they get their names included in the IIM waitlist.
Even though many students qualify for IIMs WAT-GD/PI round and clear it too, because their composite score for final selection is less than a few others, they miss the chance.
What is IIM Selection Process?
India has a total of 21 IIMs; all of these IIMs are ranked among the top 100 b-schools by NIRF. All the Indian Institute of Management have a rigorous selection process. Candidates not only need a good CAT score, but should have a stunning profile. Most of the IIMs have Group Discussion round, also known as GD round, as an essential aspect of the selection process. While some IIMs, including IIM Ahmedabad, have ditched the GD round and conduct personal interview and Academic Writing Test (AWT), along with other factors, as part of the IIM admission process.
IIMs follows a defined selection criteria for admission of the candidates the PGP course. These steps include-
- Candidates are screened based on the CAT cxam score, sectional cutoff ranks, and overall cutoff rank for the subsequent stages of the IIM selection process.
- Shortlisted candidates have to appear for AWT/WAT/GD & Personal Interview (PI)
The final selection for IIM admission is strictly based on the category-wise shortlisting and the Final Composite Score (FCS).
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What is IIM Waitlist Movement?
Every year, there is a lot of buzz among different student forums related to the IIM waitlist. So what is this waitlist movement? Let’s understand.
Waitlist Movement
Every year, lakhs of students apply for admission to MBA programmes offered by the IIMs. Since the total number of seats of all 20 IIMs is about 4000, not everyone gets successful. Once the first list of selected candidates are announced, another batch of selected students is kept waiting in case any student chooses to forgo their seat. The seat is then offered to the next best candidate. This list of students waiting for someone to give up their seats can be termed a waitlist.
IIM waitlist mainly consists of the number of seats that move up from the waitlist slab to offer. Each year’s observation depicts that the students wait long for the waitlist of IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA), IIM Bangalore (IIMB) and IIM Calcutta (IIMC) to move so that the chances of their admission get brighter. Nevertheless, the new and emerging IIM waitlist movement has also caught attention lately.
The waitlist movement in IIMs and a few top MBA colleges is category dependent. For the general category, it is extremely stringent, while for the SC, ST, OBC and PwD category there is some relaxation.
IIM Lucknow does not release the waitlist. Instead of releasing the merit list. For a student to secure their position on the merit list, they need to qualify the minimum requirement which is 12 out of 40 in the PI round.
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Highlights of Past Trends of the IIM Waitlist
Except the admission teams of individual IIMs, one cannot perhaps give the accurate data on the waitlist movement. However, based on the data published in various online platforms such as blogs, student-answering platform, we have mentioned below the past trends of waitlist movement of both Old, New and Emerging IIMs in the past two years. Take a look.
In CAT 2025, the following changes were seen:
- The fee amount was from INR 2,400 to INR 2,500 for General category candidates and from INR 1,200 to INR 1250 for Reserved category candidates.
- In the DILR section, number of questions were increased from 20 to 22.
- The total marks of CAT DILR section increased from 60 to 66.
- The total marks of CAT exam increased from 198 to 204.
- Candidates could select five cities instead of six.
IIM Ahmedabad
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 27 | 1 |
| EWS | 2 | 3 |
| OBC | 14 | 5 |
| SC | 19 | 11 |
| ST | 9 | 0 |
| PwD | 7 | 6 |
IIM Bangalore
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 67 | 33 |
| EWS | 15 | 0 |
| NC OBC | 16 | 20 |
| SC | 40 | 37 |
| ST | 08 | 4 |
| PWD | 02 | - |
IIM Bangalore (MBA Business Analytics)
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 |
|---|---|
| General | 53 |
| EWS | 15 |
| NC OBC | 58 |
| SC | 50 |
| ST | 01 |
| PWD | 04 |
IIM Calcutta
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 117 | 173 |
| EWS | 12 | 18 |
| NC OBC | 94 | 121 |
| SC | 50 | 79 |
| ST | 46 | 48 |
| PWD | 0 | 0 |
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IIM Kozikhode
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | to be updated | 174 |
| EWS | to be updated | 28 |
| NC OBC | to be updated | 110 |
| SC | to be updated | 35 |
| ST | to be updated | 22 |
| PWD | to be updated | 21 |
IIM Indore
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 820 | 604 |
| EWS | 87 | 57 |
| NC OBC | 492 | 381 |
| SC | 300 | 197 |
| ST | 132 | 93 |
| PWD | 68 | - |
The question type and pattern of CAT (Common Admission Test) and GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) are not similar. While both exams are used for admissions to management programs, they have different formats and question types. Here are the key differences between CAT and GMAT.
CAT:
- CAT is conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).
- It is a computer-based exam consisting of three sections: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DI & LR), and Quantitative Ability (QA).
- CAT includes multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and non-MCQs (Type In The Answer) questions.
- The exam pattern may vary from year to year, but generally, CAT has a time limit for each section and a fixed number of questions in each section.
GMAT:
- GMAT is an internationally recognised exam used by business schools worldwide and in India for admission to MBA and MIM programs.
- It is a computer-adaptive test, meaning the difficulty level of questions adjusts based on the test-taker's performance on the GMAT exam.
- GMAT consists of four sections: Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), Integrated Reasoning (IR), Quantitative Reasoning (QR), and Verbal Reasoning (VR).
- The question types in GMAT include multiple-choice questions, data sufficiency, sentence correction, etc.
- The GMAT 2023 exam pattern remains consistent, with a fixed number of questions and time limits for each section.
In summary, while both CAT and GMAT are entrance exams for management programs, their question types, formats, and sections differ significantly. However, it is possible to prepare for both the exam simultaneously as both are based on a similar theme. In fact, both exams will complement each other’s preparation.
The CAT 2025 exam pattern is expected to be the same as last year. No change is expected, as a minor change was already brought about in CAT 2025 (an increase in the number of DILR questions from 20 to 22). Thus, the CAT exam pattern for 2025 is expected to be:
- VARC: 24 questions, 40 minutes
- DILR: 22 questions, 40 minutes
- QA: 22 questions, 40 minutes
Every question will carry 3 marks, and there will be a negative marking of -1 for incorrect attempts.
In CAT exam, there are 20 questions in the Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning section and the total sectional marks is 60 out of 198. In CAT 2020, there were 24 question on DILR and the sectional marks were 72. In CAT 2021 and CAT 2022, there were 20 questions and the sectional marks were 60. The 20 questions are equally divided into both Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning. That means, Both Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning have 10 questions each. The questions are mostly in sets. There’s rarely any standalone question in DILR.
Some of the top MBA entrance exams carrying a high weightage of Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning questions are MAH CET, ATMA, CAT, CMAT, XAT IIFT, to name a few.
IIM Ranchi
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 1180 | 1120 |
| EWS | 180 | 160 |
| NC OBC | 410 | 380 |
| SC | 440 | 410 |
| ST | 150 | 130 |
| PWD | 135 | 120 |
IIM Trichy
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 279 | 3581 |
| EWS | 11 | 1039 |
| NC OBC | 53 | 2311 |
| SC | 96 | 1244 |
| ST | 48 | 217 |
| PWD | - | 66 |
IIM Udaipur
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 268 | 545 |
| EWS | - | 16 |
| NC OBC | - | 288 |
| SC | - | 130 |
| ST | - | 0 |
| PWD | - | 0 |
IIM Kashipur
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 | Waitlist Movement 2023-25 |
|---|---|---|
| General | 2899 | 0 |
| EWS | 300 | 70 |
| NC OBC | 1115 | 475 |
| SC | 720 | 480 |
| ST | 450 | 69 |
| PWD | 243 | 0 |
IIM Nagpur
| Category | Waitlist Movement 2024-26 |
|---|---|
| General | 996 |
| EWS | 256 |
| NC OBC | 647 |
| SC | 364 |
| ST | 276 |
| PWD | 175 |
For the students seeing their name in the IIM waiting list is an unsettling situation. However, this also implies that IIM selection committee thinks these candidates in the list to be strong. One thing about the waitlist is at least they can still hope to get admission in their dream institute. But, we recommend students to keep a back-up plan and keep chasing their aspirations.
Note: We have extracted the data of past trends of waitlist movement from third party source. If, you know something related to past trends, you may share it with us.
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With a creative soul, Abhishek is inclined towards anything in the creative space be it drawing, painting, craft, or writing. He has been working in the ed-tech industry since he started his career. Besides creative... Read Full Bio
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CAT is a computer based test which is conducted in three shifts. The CAT is conducted for two hours in which candidates have to solve 68 questions.
These 68 questions are divided into three sections Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension VARC Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning DILR and Quantitative Aptitude (QA). The VARC section has 24 questions, the DILR section has 28 questions and QA section has 22 question. Each question carries 3 marks for correct entry and -1 for incorrect entry. There is no negative marking for unanswered question. A unique aspect of CAT is the sectional time limit. Each section has a time limit of 40 minutes (53.20 minutes for PwD candidates).
Candidates have to complete the section within the time limit as the moment the onscreen timer shows 0 minutes left, the screen will automatically move to the next section. There is no option to go back to older questions. Also, candidates have to follow the question paper chronology. They have to first solve the VARC section, then the DILR section and then the QA section.