Eligibility Criteria
Educational Qualification:
- Candidates must have a Bachelor's Degree with at least 50% marks or an equivalent CGPA.
- For candidates from SC, ST, and PwD categories, the minimum requirement is 45%.
- The degree should be awarded by a university or educational institution recognised by an Act of Parliament or State legislature in India or declared a deemed university under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956.
- Equivalent qualifications recognised by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, are also accepted.
Final Year Students:
Candidates in the final year of their Bachelor's degree or awaiting results can apply. If selected, they must provide a certificate from their Principal/Registrar (issued on or before a specified date) stating that they have completed all requirements for their Bachelor's degree or equivalent qualification by the certificate issue date.
CAT 2024 Application Conditions:
- Completed Bachelor's degree with the required marks.
- Completed professional degree (CA/CS/ICWA/FIAI) with the required marks.
- In the final year of Bachelor's degree with the required marks.
Note: SC/ST/PwD candidates require a minimum of 45%, while General, EWS, and NC-OBC candidates need at least 50%.
Marks Calculation:
Marks are calculated based on the practices of the respective university/institution. For grades/CGPA, conversion to a percentage is done according to the university's certified procedure. If no conversion scheme exists, CGPA is converted by dividing by the maximum possible CGPA and multiplying by 100.
Eligibility Verification:
- IIMs will verify eligibility at different stages of the selection process, as detailed on the official CAT website.
- Meeting the minimum eligibility criteria does not guarantee shortlisting.
- Candidates must maintain a valid email account and mobile number throughout the selection process.
- Reservation
PwD Reservation:
Under the RPwD Act 2016, 5% of seats are reserved for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwD), defined as those with at least 40% of a specified disability.
Categories of disabilities include:
- Blindness and low vision
- Deaf and hard of hearing
- Locomotor disability, cerebral palsy, leprosy cured, dwarfism, acid attack victims, and muscular dystrophy
- Autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability, and mental illness
- Multiple disabilities from among the above categories
- Other specified disabilities as per the RPwD Act 2016
Eligibility For Reserved Categories:
Candidates from SC/ST/NC-OBC/EWS/PwD categories must meet the minimum eligibility criteria and performance levels for admission consideration. They should carefully read the selection process on each IIM's website.
Caste and Disability Certificates:
SC/ST candidates must have their caste/tribe listed in the Government of India schedule and provide caste certificates in the approved format. PwD candidates are encouraged to apply for and upload a UDID card during registration.
Documentation: SC/ST/NC-OBC/EWS/PwD certificates must be uploaded during CAT registration and presented during interviews and at the time of joining any IIM program. Failure to provide these documents will result in rejection from the reserved category.
Percentile Score Calculation
- Calculate the total number of candidates (N) who appeared for CAT (i.e. including morning, afternoon and evening sessions).
- Assign a rank (r), based on the scaled scores obtained in the QA section, to all candidates who appeared for CAT. In the case of two or more candidates obtaining identical scaled scores in the QA section, assign identical ranks to all those candidates.
As an illustration suppose exactly two candidates obtain the highest scaled score in the QA section, then both of those candidates are assigned a rank of 1. Moreover, the candidate(s) obtaining the
second highest scaled score in the QA section are assigned a rank of 3 and so on.
- Calculate the percentile score (P) of a candidate with rank (r) in the QA section as:
- 𝑃 = (𝑁 − 𝑟)/N x 100
- Round off the calculated percentile score (P) of a candidate up to two decimal points.
For example, all percentile scores greater than or equal to 99.995 are rounded off to 100, all percentile scores greater than or equal to 99.985 but strictly less than 99.995 are rounded off to
99.99 and so on.
A methodology similar to the above is used for the computation of the overall CAT percentile scores and for the percentile scores of other sections.