A non-engineer arts candidate with 99.3 percentile and 9/9/8 academics technically meets IIM A's academic diversity bonus but often still misses the cutoff because IIM A's GEM-Non-Engineer composite score bar is extremely high. IIM A fees are Rs 27.
5L with Rs 35.22 LPA average. Academic diversity (non-engineer) gives roughly 3-4 effective percentile, but when your raw CAT is 99.
3, even adding 4 gets you to 103 which still competes with 99.7+ raw engineer candidates. Within non-engineers, commerce/arts with sub-85% 12th scores lose academic composite points.
Your 9/9/8 acads are competitive but not stellar; IIM A often prefers 9.5+ across the board. For arts candidates, IIM A typically wants 8.
5+ in graduation which means 85%+ for percentage-based scoring systems. One thread comment noted that arts candidates need 8.5+ CGPA to get full marks in the grad component.
Another noted 99.94s getting rejected, highlighting the randomness at the top. Your path forward: if you got calls from other IIMs (B, C, L, K) convert them; if you got no calls anywhere at 99.
3 non-engineer, something in your profile is structurally weak (usually 10th or 12th below 80%). Apply to FMS (non-engineers favored), XLRI, SPJIMR, MDI next year or this year. Check your eligibility at collvera.