CAT Qualifying Marks 2025: Expected Category-Wise & Section-Wise Cutoff, Previous Year Trends

CAT Qualifying Marks 2025: Expected Category-Wise & Section-Wise Cutoff, Previous Year Trends

Team Careers360Updated on 30 Nov 2025, 11:48 AM IST

The CAT 2025 qualifying marks will be revealed once the CAT 2025 cutoff for the academic session 2026-2028 is released. Candidates appearing for the CAT 2025 exam slot 2 and CAT exam slot 3 must check the CAT 2025 qualifying marks The CAT qualifying marks 2025 will be released for the Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) and other top B-schools accepting the CAT scores for their MBA/PGDM courses under different MBA specializations. This article provides the expected CAT qualifying marks and previous years CAT cutoff to give a fair idea to the candidates who are applying to different colleges to pursue an MBA. The result for the CAT exam 2025 is expected to be declared in the second week of December.

This Story also Contains

  1. CAT Qualifying Marks 2025: Category-Wise
  2. CAT 2025 Qualification Marks: Sections-Wise
  3. CAT 2025 Qualifying Marks: Previous Year Trends
  4. CAT Qualifying Marks for IIMs
  5. CAT Qualifying Marks for Non-IIMs
CAT Qualifying Marks 2025: Expected Category-Wise & Section-Wise Cutoff, Previous Year Trends
CAT Qualifying Marks 2025

CAT Qualifying Marks 2025: Category-Wise

The qualifying marks of CAT 2025 will depend on several contributing factors, such as the CAT exam difficulty level, the number of appearing candidates, seats offered, and the reservation criteria. The expected CAT 2025 qualifying marks for candidates across different categories are given in the table below.

CategoryCAT Qualifying Marks 2025 (Expected)

General

99.9%

OBC

99%

SC

90%

ST

80%

PWD

70%

CAT 2025 Qualification Marks: Sections-Wise

The CAT 2025 exam has sectional cutoffs for each of its sections. All the candidates must clear the sectional cutoffs as well as the overall CAT 2025 cutoff to be eligible for admission to the IIMs and other B schools. The CAT qualifying marks for different CAT sections are mentioned in the table below.

CAT PercentileVARC ScoreDILR ScoreQA ScoreOverall Score

99.9%

52.94

43.32

36.68

132.94

99.5%

44

41.4

36.5

103.98

99%

12.08

61.56

43.16

96.79

98%

36

34

29

86

95%

30

27

22

70

CAT 2025 Qualifying Marks: Previous Year Trends

CAT qualifying marks for the previous years in which CAT was conducted give an important metric as to what marks are required by the candidates to qualify for the IIMs and other top colleges. The CAT 2024 qualifying marks for different category candidates are given in the table below.

CategoryCAT Qualifying Marks 2024

General

99.68%

OBC

97.71%

SC

78.95%

ST

72.79%

EWS

97%

CAT Qualifying Marks for IIMs

The IIMs have different CAT qualifying marks criteria for admission. The expected CAT qualifying marks 2025 for IIM colleges are given in the table below.

List of IIMs

CAT Qualifying Marks 2025

CAT Qualifying Marks 2025

IIM Ahmedabad

95

90.98

IIM Bangalore

85

95.45

IIM Calcutta

99

-

IIM Lucknow

90

91.02

IIM Indore

90

92.43

IIM Kozhikode

85

-

IIM Amritsar

90

96

IIM Nagpur

95

96

IIM Sambalpur

90

96

IIM Trichy

95

95

IIM Raipur

80

95

IIM Ranchi

95

95

IIM Vizag

82

95

IIM Udaipur

95

93

IIM Bodh Gaya

94

93

IIM Shillong

-

93

IIM Sirmaur

95

92

IIM Rohtak

95

96

IIM Mumbai

85

-

CAT Qualifying Marks for Non-IIMs

Apart from the IIMs, various top-rated B schools across the country also accept CAT scores for their MBA/PGDM admissions. The expected CAT 2025 qualifying marks for non-IIMs are given in the table below.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: What time is the CAT exam today?
A:

Here are the CAT 2025 Exam slot timings: 

CAT 2025 Exam SlotsCAT Slot Timings 2025
CAT Exam Slot 1 20258:30 AM to 10:30 AM
CAT 2025 Slot 212:30 PM to 2:30 PM
CAT 2025 exam slot 34:30 PM to 6:30 PM
Q: What are the minimum marks to qualify for the CAT exam?
A:

According to the eligibility criteria a candidate must have at least 50% marks or an equivalent CGPA (45% for reserved category candidates) in Bachelor’s for the CAT exam. The marks of 10th and 12th standard will also play an important role in the selection process.

Q: What is the passing score in the CAT?
A:

The passing score in the CAT exam will be different for all the colleges. However, candidates should at least aim for more than 90 percentile to get a good college. For IIMs, a good score will be at least 99 percentile as per cutoff trends.

Q: How many attempts for the CAT?
A:

There are no specific number of attempts prescribed by the authorities for the CAT exam. CAT is held once every year by an IIM. There is also no upper age limit specified for a candidate wishing to appear for the CAT exam.

Q: How many seats are in IIM?
A:

The total seats in all the 21 IIMs (Indian Institute of Management) come to be around 5500. These seats are collectively for the MBA and the PGDM courses offered by all the IIMs throughout the country.

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Questions related to CAT

On Question asked by student community

Have a question related to CAT ?

Hi there,

The minimum eligibility criteria for a general candidate to receive a call from IIM Sambalpur are as follows:
VARC: 65%ile
QUANTS: 65%ile
LRDI: 65%ile
Overall: 90%tile
Keep practising and aim to improve your score. You can also focus on other management exams where you may secure a strong

Hi there,

With a B.tech in industrial engineering from IIT Roorkee and a CAT 2025 score of 98.89 percentile and strong sectionals your profile is solid for top B-schools. For the top IIMs like Ahmedabad and Bangalore, calls for engineers usually go to candidates with near perfect percentiles. Your score

Hello,
The IIT Guwahati cutoff for SC and EWS categories depends on the branch, year, and JoSAA counselling round, but you can get a general idea from recent trends.

For the SC category, closing ranks usually range from 4,000 to 9,000 for popular branches like CSE, ECE, and Mechanical, while

with this percentile, you can get into tier 2 or tier 3 college, the list of the few notable college is given below-

1) FLAME university, Pune

2) AIMS institute, Bangalore

3) Doon business school, Dehradun

4) Christ university, Bangalore

5) NIT Trichy

6) KIIT school of management, Bhuvneshwar






A CAT percentile of 99.64 is an excellent score and definitely places you in a strong position for top IIM calls, including IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, and IIM Calcutta. However, admission to these institutes is not based on CAT score alone. Each of these IIMs follows a holistic selection process