CAT Cutoffs 2025: Check IIMs, Top MBA Colleges Cutoffs; Best Colleges Percentile Wise

CAT Cut Off is the percentile required to get shortlisted for the Personal Interview (PI) process at IIMs and other top MBA colleges. In general, top colleges have higher CAT Cutoffs (95%+ for IIMs), but some top MBA colleges like SPJIMR Mumbai keep cutoffs low to interview candidates with lower CAT scores (85%+) but excellent profiles and achievements. Here is quick overview:

• IIM CAT Cutoffs can be divided into following categories:

  • IIM Qualifying CAT Cutoffs

  • IIM Minimum CAT Cutoffs 

  • IIM Final CAT Cutoffs

• IIM CAT Cutoff 2025 varies significantly for General, EWS, SC, ST categories. Read more details in the article below.
• CAT Cutoffs 2025 for Top MBA Colleges: Cut Offs for top non-IIM MBA colleges like FMS, SPJIMR, MDI, IIFT is at par with Top IIMs in 94-99 percentile range.  
• CAT Cut Off 2025 for other best MBA colleges like IMI Delhi, FORE, GIM Goa vary from 85-94 percentile. Check CAT percentile wise best MBA colleges recommendations in this article.

Before we discuss IIM and Top MBA colleges CAT Cutoffs, check CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025 estimates Scores required for 99, 95, 90 and other Percentiles. For example, to get 99% in Slot 1, you need a score of 90 marks. So, to meet CAT Cut off of say 90%, you need to score about 51-52 marks in CAT 2025. Check details in table below. 

Table 1: CAT Score vs Percentile 2025 (expected)

IIM Admission Process involves following types of cut offs: IIM Qualifying CAT Cutoffs, IIM Minimum CAT Cutoffs, IIM Final CAT Cutoffs, as explained below.

IIM Qualifying CAT Cutoff 2025: These qualifying CAT cut offs are officially released by the B-schools before the CAT exam. This CAT cut off is the threshold criteria to shortlist the candidates for interview round. If the candidates do not clear these CAT cut off, they will not be considered for next admission round. But it does not give any assurance that the candidate will be shortlisted based on qualifying cut off. Qualifying CAT Cut Offs are between 75-90 percent and used only to process data for shortlisting candidates for Personal Interview (PI) Round.

IIM Minimum CAT Cutoffs: This cut off is based on RTI data that reveal what is the lowest CAT percentile of any candidate who has been offered admissions into a given IIM. These range from 90-95%, but are reserved for a few exceptional 1% candidates who have national and international achievements. 

IIM Final CAT Cutoffs: These final admission CAT cut off is much higher than qualifying cut off, and are applicable for 99% of candidates. For example, in its Admission Policy 2026, IIM Bangalore has announced qualifying CAT cut off as 85 percentiles, but the actual CAT cut off is expected to go up as high as 98-99 percentile.

Following section presents data for each of these three cutoffs. 

These qualifying CAT cut offs are officially released by IIMs and are used to shortlist the candidates for interview round. If the candidates do not clear these CAT cut off, they will not be considered. But meeting these does not assurance that the candidate will be shortlisted as many other parameters like academics and work experience are also considered.

IIM Ahmedabad has set one of the highest qualifying cut off, with General candidates requiring 95 overall CAT 2025 percentile. IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta have minimum CAT percentiles requirement of 85 percent for general candidates. Check details tables from the official IIM admission 2026 policy documents. Table also includes CAT Sectional Cut Offs 2025 and Cat cut off 2025 for OBC. It is important to note that these figures represent minimum eligibility cut-offs only. In practice, the percentiles of candidates who are actually shortlisted are often higher.

Table 2: IIM Ahmedabad CAT Cutoff 2025 (Qualifying Requirement)

Note: PwD stands for Persons with Disabilities

 Table 3: IIM Bangalore CAT Cutoffs 2025 (Qualifying Requirement) 

Note: These are the minimum percentile cut-offs used for shortlisting candidates for the first stage. The actual percentiles of candidates who received interview calls were higher.

Table 4: IIM Calcutta CAT Cutoffs 2025 (Qualifying Requirement)

Table 5: IIM Lucknow CAT Cutoffs 2025 (Qualifying Requirement for Shortlisting Process) 

Source: IIM Lucknow

This cut off is based on RTI data that reveal what is the lowest CAT percentile of any candidate who has been offered admissions into a given IIM. These range from 90-95%, but are reserved for a few exceptional 1% candidates who have national and international achievements.Check these minimum overall percentiles of candidates admitted to IIMs in 2025.

These final admission CAT cut off is much higher than qualifying cut off, and minimum cut offs, and are applicable for 99% of candidates. These are also called “safe cut off”. Based on previous year trends, the expected CAT 2025 Cut Off for general candidates is below. 

Table 6: CAT 2025 Cut Off IIMs for General Candidates 

Above table gives CAT Cut Off 2025 General Category details. 

Given below are the IIM cut off category wise including CAT cut off for IIM for General category, CAT cut off for IIM for SC category, CAT Cut off for IIM for OBC NC category, CAT cut off for IIM for EWS and CAT cut off for IIM for ST and PwD category candidates:

Table 7: CAT Cut Off 2025 Category Wise

There were eight IIMs that participated in IIM CAP 2025 process, and had common CAT Exam Cutoff for shortlisting. IIM CAP 2026 details are yet to be released. Check IIM CAP Cut Offs 2025 in table below.

Table 8: IIM CAP Cut Off 2026 

IIM Joint Admission Process (JAP) 2026 is a new common MBA admission process for IIM Kashipur, IIIM Raipur, IIM Ranchi, and IIM Tiruchirappalli. IIM JAP CAT Cut Offs 2026 will be announced soon. Meanwhile, check expected IIM JAP Cut Offs 2026 in the table below. 

Table 9: IIM JAP Cut Off 2026 

After the CAP rounds are over, a few IIMs also initiate the IIM Supplementary Admission Process (SAP) round. Last year, only 2 colleges participated in the SAP round and the IIM SAP cutoff was set at 92%ile. Check details in table below. 

Table 10: IIM SAP Cut Off 2026 

IIT CAT Cut Offs are high and at part with IIMs and other top B-schools. Check their expected CAT Cut Offs in the table below.

Table 11: IIT CAT Cut offs 2026 (Expected) 

Check Top MBA Colleges CAT Cutoff 2025 (Non-IIMs) that will shortlist candidates with an overall CAT score between CAT 90-95 for the 2026-28 batch.

CAT 2025 Cut-Offs by Percentile: 80% and Above 

CAT 2025 Cut-Offs by Percentile: 70% and Above 

CAT 2025 Cut-Offs by Percentile: Below 70%