IIM Ahmedabad Admission Criteria | IIM Ahmedabad Selection Criteria

Thousands of candidates prepare for CAT (Common Admission Test) exam each year and aim to secure a seat in the top Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). Thereafter, the candidates are shortlisted as per the CAT cut-off and need to appear for Written Ability Test/ Group Discussion and Personal interview.

It is imperative for the candidates preparing for CAT to understand the admission process followed by IIM Ahmedabad. Indian Institute of Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has a two-step process for the selection of candidates to the two-year Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) 2024-26.

IIM-A Selection Criteria for PGP 2024-26

As per latest notification, IIM-A has removed the bachelor’s degree component from their shortlisting criteria. Such a decision has been taken since the CAT 2022 Committee did away with the minimum percentage criteria in bachelor’s degree. This is mainly because in the last two years, universities have not conducted examinations owing to covid situation and given pass/promotion certifications to the graduating students.

Accordingly, Academic Rating (AR) score has been modified. IIM-A follows the following two steps for the admitting students to PGP:

1. Preliminary Screening process:

There are three sections in the CAT exam namely, Quantitative Aptitude (QA), Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Verbal Ability & Reasoning Comprehension (VARC). The candidates are required to clear the following for getting shortlisted for the next stage:

Minimum cut-offs in the sectional percentile ranks
Overall percentile rank and a positive raw score in all three sections

Table 1: CAT 2024 Percentile Ranks - Minimum Sectional Cut-offs for IIM-A

Category	VARC Percentile Rank (PVRC)	DILR Percentile Rank (PDILR)	QA Percentile Rank (PQA)	Overall Percentile Rank (PT)
General, EWS	70	70	70	80
NC-OBC-cum-transgender	65	65	65	75
SC	60	60	60	70
ST	50	50	50	60
PwD (General, EWS, NC-OBC-cum-transgender, SC)	60	60	60	70
PwD (ST)	50	50	50	60

(Key: EWS- Economically Weaker Sections, SC- Scheduled Castes, ST- Scheduled Tribes, NC-OBC: Non-creamy Other Backward Castes, PwD- Persons with disabilities)

Application/Academic Rating Score: The rating scores of candidates are calculated at different stages of the admission process. It is the sum of the following components:

Percentage of marks in class 10^th.
Percentage of marks in class 12^th(Streams -Science/Commerce/Humanities)
Percentage of marks in Bachelor's degree programme
Duration of work experience

For compilation, the equivalent Rating scores are obtained using percentile equivalence of score distributions after taking into account the previous year's CAT data.

Detailed information on the marks obtained:

Table 2: Rating Score for Class 10^th Exams (A)

Class 10th Percentage	Rating Score A
<=55	1
>55 and <= 60	2
>60 and <= 70	3
>70 and <= 80	5
>80 and <= 90	8
>90	10

Table 3: Rating Score for Class 12^th Exams (B)

For Science Stream		For Commerce Stream		For Arts/ Humanities Stream
Class 12^th Percentage	Rating Score (B)	Class 12^th Percentage	Rating Score (B)	Class 12^th Percentage	Rating Score (B)
<=55	1	<=50	1	<=45	1
>55 and <= 60	2	>50 and <= 55	2	>45 and <= 50	2
>60 and <= 70	3	>55 and <= 65	3	>50 and <= 60	3
>70 and <= 80	5	>65 and <= 75	5	>60 and <= 70	5
>80 and <= 90	8	>75 and <= 90	8	>70 and <= 85	8
>90	10	>90	10	>85	10

Table 4: Rating Score for Work Experience (D)

Work Experience in Month (As filled in the CAT Application Form)	Rating Score D
< 12 Months	0
>=12 and <= 36 months	MF* (number of months of work experience-11)
>36 months	5
Work-experience Multiplication Factor (MF) = 0.20

Application/Academic Rating Score - (Rating score A of Class 10^th+ Rating Score B of Class 12^th+ Rating Score D of Work experience).

AR Score= A+B+D

Normalised Score: To get a Normalised AR score of a particular candidate, the AR score is divided by the average of the top Fifty AR scores from the group of candidates who appear for the CAT exam.

2. Shortlisting Process for Analytical Writing Test (AWT) & Personal Interview (PI)

Stage 1: In this step, IIM-A selects exceptional achievers and performers from the total number of candidates who have applied. A certain number of best candidates from different academic disciplines are shortlisted for AWT and PI based on the “Composite Score” they achieved.

From each of the academic categories (AC) from which the total number of applicants to IIM A that take CAT, those belonging to SC/ST/ NC-OBC/PwD categories is at least 100, the top 5 % in the respective AC limited to the respective categories (General/ SC/ST/NC/-OBC/PwD). These will be referred to as ACRC groups subject to upper limits on the numbers per ACRC group as mentioned in Table 6, will be further shortlisted for AWT and PI on the basis of the composite score.

Table 6

CS (Composite Score)= ARF_CS * Normalised AR score + CATF_CS * Normalised overall score in CAT 2024

AR Multiplication Factor for Composite Score (ARF_CS)= 0.35

CAT Multiplication Factor for Composite Score (CATF_CS)= 0.65

Table 6a: The upper limits (UL) on the number of candidates to be shortlisted per RC from different academic disciplines

Category	Upper Limit (UL) Per ACRC (1)
General	100
NC-OBC-cum -transgender	57
SC	32
ST	16
PwD	6

Note: 5% or the numbers mentioned in Table 6a, whichever are smaller.

Criteria as per cut-offs:

C1. Candidate’s score in PVRC, PDILR, PQA, and PT must not be lower than the minimum cut-offs as specified in Table 1.

C2. P ≥ Minimum Cut-offs (specific to the category and the stream as shown in Table 7), where P is the average of the percentages of marks scored in 10^th and 12^th std. examinations.)

Table 7

Class 12^th Std Stream	General-cum-EWS Category	NC-OBC-cum-transgender Category	SC Category	ST Category	PWD (General, NC-OBC-cum-transgender, SC)	PWD (ST)
Science	80	75	70	65	70	65
Commerce	77	72	67	62	67	62
Arts & Humanities	75	70	64	59	64	59

C3. PT ≥ 80, PQA ≥ 70, PDILR ≥ 70, and PVRC ≥ 70.

C4. P ≥ 80 (Science), 77 (Commerce), 75 (Arts/Humanities), where P is the average of the percentages of marks scored in the 10^th and 12^th std. examinations.

Stage 2: After removing the candidates selected in Stage 1 from each category (General, NC-OBC, SC, ST, and PWD), the additional number of candidates to be shortlisted for AWT & PI will be selected on the basis of the composite score ‘CS' (see above) subject to their fulfilling criteria C1-C2.

3. Final Selection Process

Once the candidate has reached this stage, then further selection will strictly be based on the shortlisting of the candidates done separately for each category (General/ SC/ST/NC- OBC/ PwD) on the basis of the candidate’s “Final Composite Score”(FCS).

The final Composite Score (FCS) of the candidate who appears for AWT and PI will be computed in the following manner:-

FCS = PIF * Normalised PI Score + AWTF * Normalised AWT Score + CATF_FCS * Normalised CAT Score + ARF_FCS * AR

Personal Interview Multiplication Factor (PIF) = 0.50

AWT Multiplication Factor (AWTF) = 0.10

CAT Score Multiplication Factor for Final Composite Score (CATF_FCS) = 0.25

AR Multiplication Factor for Final Composite Score (ARF_FCS) = 0.15

A candidate’s normalized PI and AWT scores are the score in the respective field, divided by the average of the top 1% scores in the same field respectively.

Candidates should note that it is extremely important to perform well in each section of the test.

For more information, students should visit the official website (www.iima.ac.in).

Note: Students holding foreign passports have to appear for the GMAT exam and apply through the Supernumerary Quota category only.

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