CAT 2025: Top IIMs maintain higher percentile thresholds for first-stage shortlisting; marks vs percentile

The Common Admission Test (CAT) 2025 exam is scheduled to be held on November 30. The percentile scores obtained in CAT are used to shortlist candidates for further admission stages, including the written ability test and personal interview rounds.

As per previous year’s trends, candidates who secured a raw score between 95 and 100 marks in CAT fall in the 99 to 100 percentile range. Those scoring around 73 to 78 marks correspond to the 95 percentile range, while 60 to 65 marks are generally aligned with the 90 percentile bracket.

Each Indian Institute of Management (IIM) releases its own shortlisting criteria every year, indicating the minimum overall and sectional percentile required for consideration in the admission process. The final selection is based on a composite score that takes into account the CAT percentile, performance in WAT and PI, academic record, work experience, and other parameters defined by each IIM.

Sectional and overall cut-off benchmarks

For the general category, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta have historically required 85 percentile or above in each section and an overall percentile close to 95 or higher for the first stage of shortlisting.

IIM Lucknow and IIM Kozhikode have overall percentile cut-offs around 90, with sectional cut-offs between 80 and 85. Newer IIMs such as IIM Trichy, IIM Nagpur, IIM Udaipur and IIM Ranchi consider candidates with percentiles in the range of 92 to 94 for general category.

Clearing the percentile cut-off does not ensure final admission, as IIMs further assess candidates through Written Ability Test, Personal Interview, academic background, and work experience. The final composite score varies across institutes and admission years. CAT 2025 admit card is scheduled to be issued on November 12.

CAT 2025 Exam: Cutoff marks vs percentile

Candidates can check the CAT cutoff marks vs percentile for previous year’s from the table below.

Also readAIMA opens MAT December 2025 registrations; PBT, CBT on December 13 and 21

CAT 2025: Previous year’s cut-off for IIM admission

Candidates can check the previous year’s CAT cut-off for IIM admission from the table below.