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

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