What are the CAT cutoffs for different reservation categories at top IIMs?

CAT cutoffs at top IIMs drop by roughly 10 percentile for OBC, 20-25 percentile for SC/ST, and 2-5 percentile for EWS compared to the General category. Clearing the cutoff only earns you a shortlist call; the real competition happens at the composite score stage.

IIM Ahmedabad Cutoffs (PGP 2024)

IIMA sets the toughest bar in the country. General candidates need 99+ overall with sectional floors around 85 percentile in each section. Sectional cutoffs matter as much as the overall, so a 99.5 overall with a 70 in VARC will still get you rejected.

IIM Bangalore follows a nearly identical pattern; sectional cutoffs are marginally softer. IIM Calcutta sits in the same tier as IIMA on overall cutoffs but is slightly stricter on academic profile weightage during shortlisting.

IIM Lucknow, Kozhikode, and Indore

The next tier of IIMs runs cutoffs roughly 2-4 percentile below the old IIMs for General candidates, with proportional relaxations across reserved categories.

Baby IIMs (Ranchi, Rohtak, Trichy, etc.) are typically 5-10 percentile lower across all categories. FMS Delhi has slightly lower overall cutoffs but compensates with heavy academic weightage in its composite formula.

What Happens After You Clear the Cutoff

Reservation status affects only the shortlisting bar, not the composite formula applied afterward. Once shortlisted, every candidate competes on the same scoring framework.

At most IIMs, that formula weights CAT score at 35-50%, academics at 20-30%, GD-PI performance at 25-35%, and work experience plus diversity at 5-10% each. A borderline shortlist score combined with a weak interview is a losing combination regardless of category.

This path is hard, and pretending otherwise does you no favors. OBC candidates at 88-90 percentile face roughly 10-15 times more applicants competing for 27% of seats.

SC/ST candidates at 70-80 percentile face intense competition within their pool because reserved seats at old IIMs are limited in absolute numbers.

Where Candidates Commonly Lose Ground

• Hitting the overall cutoff but missing a sectional floor (DILR is the most common failure point)
• Clearing IIMA's bar but not preparing the PI rigorously, since McKinsey, BCG, and Goldman Sachs eventually hire from these campuses and interviewers know it
• Targeting the cutoff exactly, with no buffer for percentile fluctuation year to year

Always build in a 3-5 percentile buffer above the published cutoff. Year-on-year difficulty shifts can move sectional cutoffs by 2-3 points, and you do not want to gamble your application on a single difficult CAT paper.