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    How Many Students Are Selected in IIMs After CAT 2025? Acceptance Rate, Seats & Category-Wise Intake

    How Many Students Are Selected in IIMs After CAT 2025? Acceptance Rate, Seats & Category-Wise Intake

    Team Careers360Updated on 17 Dec 2025, 11:25 AM IST

    With over 2.95 Lakhs CAT 2025 applications this year and out of which 2.58 lakh students took the CAT 2025 exam. Candidates are now curious about how many students get selected in IIMs. Since IIMs are considered to be the most prestigious management institutes in the country. The number of students aiming for the IIMs every year is more than 2 lakh. However, the IIMs only select a handful of candidates, i.e. approximately 8000. Among these 5500 IIM seats, a great number of seats are reserved for the candidates who belong to the reserved categories. This makes the competition for IIM seats more fierce.

    This Story also Contains

    1. Total Candidates Selected in IIM
    2. IIM Selection Criteria
    3. IIM Reservation Criteria
    How Many Students Are Selected in IIMs After CAT 2025? Acceptance Rate, Seats & Category-Wise Intake
    How Many Students Get Selected in IIM?

    Total Candidates Selected in IIM

    The IIM acceptance rate for candidates is very low. From around 2 lakh candidates appearing for the CAT exam, only a few thousand are shortlisted for the PI round. The finally selected candidates are very few. The total number of candidates selected in each IIM varies as per the batch size of the respective IIM. The seat matrix for different IIMs is given in the table below.

    Name of the IIM

    Total candidates selected

    Total General candidates

    Total EWS candidates

    Total OBC candidates

    Total SC candidates

    Total ST candidates

    Total PWD Students

    IIM Ahmedabad

    404

    189

    9

    101

    56

    29

    20

    IIM Bangalore

    523

    201

    53

    137

    78

    38

    16

    IIM Calcutta

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    IIM Lucknow

    507

    194

    51

    135

    77

    39

    11

    IIM Indore

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    IIM Kozhikode

    489

    204

    33

    133

    73

    35

    11

    IIM Amritsar

    231

    97

    38

    62

    30

    4

    0

    IIM Nagpur

    356

    163

    45

    76

    42

    21

    9

    IIM Sambalpur

    323

    137

    36

    85

    49

    16

    -

    IIM Trichy

    430

    161

    42

    113

    63

    32

    19

    IIM Raipur

    439

    238

    33

    88

    46

    23

    11

    IIM Ranchi

    248

    80

    24

    81

    37

    22

    4

    IIM Vizag

    346

    140

    36

    93

    53

    23

    1

    IIM Udaipur

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    IIM Bodh Gaya

    301

    123

    30

    81

    45

    22

    0

    IIM Shillong

    400

    300

    40

    -

    42

    9

    9

    IIM Sirmaur

    281

    104

    43

    75

    47

    12

    -

    IIM Rohtak

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    -

    IIM Mumbai

    324

    127

    32

    85

    48

    25

    7

    IIM Selection Criteria

    The IIM Selection criteria for candidates aspiring to pursue any of the offered MBA/PGDM programs are listed below.

    • A candidate must have a Bachelor's degree with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA (45% in case of reserved categories).

    • Candidates must have a valid CAT scorecard.

    • The candidate should mandatorily qualify for the CAT cutoff specified by the respective IIM to send an application.

    • Candidates shortlisted for the PI round are evaluated based on their performance in the different tests. Apart from that, the overall profile of a candidate is also given significant weightage.

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    IIM Reservation Criteria

    IIMs have prescribed reservation criteria for different categories of candidates. The OBC category has a 27% reservation quota, while the SC and ST categories have 7.5% and 15% respectively. 10% of seats are reserved for the EWS and 5% for the PwD candidates. The distribution of seats in the IIMs is provided in the table below.

    Category

    Category-wise Distribution of IIM Seats

    General

    3500

    OBC

    809

    SC and ST

    538

    PwD and EWS

    550

    Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

    Q: How many students get admission in IIM?
    A:

    It is estimated that approximately 8000 students are admitted to the 21 IIMs in India each year to pursue their MBA/PGDM programs. 

    Q: Is IIM tougher than IIT?
    A:

    Getting admission in both IIMs and IITs is tough as both conduct one of the toughest entrance exams in India. 

    Q: Is 70 a good score in CAT?
    A:

    A 70-80 percentile in the CAT exam will be considered a moderate score. Although the candidate will be above average. 

    Q: How many seats are there in IIM?
    A:

    The seats across all the IIMs are approximately 5500. The seats are an individual IIM depending on the batch size issued for the particular academic session.

    Q: How many get selected in IIM?
    A:

    From over 2 lakh CAT applicants, around 10,000 candidates get shortlisted for the PI rounds of an IIM. The final number of selected candidates in IIM is around 5500.

    Q: What percentage of students get into IIM?
    A:

    Out of the total CAT-qualified candidates only 10-15% are shortlisted for the PI rounds. After the PI rounds are conducted along with other evaluation tests, only around 2% of the applicants receive the final admission letter from IIMs across the nation.

    Q: What is the selection rate for IIM?
    A:

    The selection rate of all the IIMs combined comes to be less than 3% (approximately 2.17%). This is the selection rate for over 2 lakh candidates appearing for the CAT exam and the candidates finally making it to an IIM.

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    Questions related to CAT

    On Question asked by student community

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