Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad(IIMA) is the top B-school in India and also the most desirable college for many MBA aspirants. The first step towards getting admission into the IIM Ahmedabad is taking the Common Admission Test (CAT) exam. Every year over two lakh candidates appear for the CAT exam. The selection criteria at the IIMA are based on the CAT score, Overall academic record, Work experience, Gender diversity, and the performance of the candidate in the Analytical Writing Test (AWT) and the Personal Interview (PI). In this article, we will look at IIM Ahmedabad admission criteria 2023 in detail.
Considering that IIM Ahmedabad is the top B-school in India, the selection process is a little complex compared to the other IIMs. The first step towards getting admission into the IIM Ahmedabad is taking the Common Admission Test (CAT) exam. The below table refers to the basic CAT score requirement for all categories.
The Preliminary screening is nothing but the stage-1 that is a process of shortlisting the candidates to the stage-2 by considering the candidate's CAT 2022 scores, academic scores and the work experience.
Category | Verbal and Reading Comprehension percentile rank (PVRC) | Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning percentile rank (PDILR) | Quantitative Aptitude 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 |
(Please note that these are cut-offs used for preparing the first shortlist. The scores of those called for interviews were higher. )
During the selection process in IIM Ahmedabad ‘Application Rating,' (AR) score of an applicant will be used.
Percent score in 10th Std. Exam | Rating Score A |
<= 55 | 1 |
> 55 and <= 60 | 2 |
> 60 and <= 70 | 3 |
> 70 and <= 80 | 5 |
> 80 and <= 90 | 8 |
> 90 | 10 |
Science Stream | |
Percent score in 12th Std. Exam | Rating Score B |
<= 55 | 1 |
> 55 and <= 60 | 2 |
> 60 and <= 70 | 3 |
> 70 and <= 80 | 5 |
> 80 and <= 90 | 8 |
> 90 | 10 |
Commerce Stream | |
Percent score in 12th Std. Exam | Rating Score B |
<= 50 | 1 |
> 50 and <= 55 | 2 |
> 55 and <= 65 | 3 |
> 65 and <= 75 | 5 |
> 75 and <= 90 | 8 |
> 90 | 10 |
Arts/Humanities Stream | |
Percent score in 12th Std. Exam | Rating Score B |
<= 45 | 1 |
> 45 and <= 50 | 2 |
> 50 and <= 60 | 3 |
> 60 and <= 70 | 5 |
> 70 and <= 85 | 8 |
> 85 | 10 |
AC-1 | |
Percent score in Bachelor's Degree | Rating Score C |
<= 55 | 1 |
> 55 and <= 60 | 2 |
> 60 and <= 62 | 3 |
> 62 and <= 65 | 5 |
> 65 and <= 70 | 8 |
> 70 | 10 |
AC-2 | |
Percent score in Professional courses | Rating Score C |
<= 50 | 1 |
> 50 and <= 53 | 2 |
> 53 and <= 55 | 3 |
> 55 and <= 57 | 5 |
> 57 and <= 63 | 8 |
> 63 | 10 |
AC-3 | |
Percent score in Bachelor's Degree | Rating Score C |
<= 55 | 1 |
> 55 and <= 60 | 2 |
> 60 and <= 65 | 3 |
> 65 and <= 70 | 5 |
> 70 and <= 80 | 8 |
> 80 | 10 |
AC-4 & AC-6 | |
Percent score in Bachelor's Degree | Rating Score C |
<= 60 | 1 |
> 60 and <= 65 | 2 |
> 65 and <= 70 | 3 |
> 70 and <= 75 | 5 |
> 75 and <= 85 | 8 |
> 85 | 10 |
AC-5 | |
Percent score in Professional courses | Rating Score C |
<= 50 | 1 |
> 50 and <= 55 | 2 |
> 55 and <= 60 | 3 |
> 60 and <= 65 | 5 |
> 65 and <= 75 | 8 |
> 75 | 10 |
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 Rating Score: AR= (A+B+C+D).
Shortlisting will be carried out in two ways. Firstly, a certain number of top candidates from each academic discipline will be shortlisted for AWT & PI on the basis of their composite score ‘CS' (given below), subject to their fulfilling certain criteria.
The top 5% in the respective AC limited to the respective categories (General/SC/ST/NC-OBC/PwD) among the applicants to IIMA (referred to as ACRC groups) will be shortlisted for AWT & PI on the basis of the composite score ‘CS' (given below) subject to their fulfilling criteria C1-C3.
CS (Composite Score) = ARF_CS * Normalised AR score + CATF_CS * Normalised overall score in CAT-2021 |
Application Rating Multiplication Factor for Composite Score (ARF_CS) = 0.35; CAT Multiplication Factor for Composite Score (CATF_CS) = 0.65 |
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' (as shown in the above table) subject to their fulfilling criteria C1-C2.
The selection at this stage will strictly be based on the candidates' shortlisting separately for each category (General/SC/ST/NC-OBC/PwD) on the basis of their ‘Final Composite scores (FCS).
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 Application Rating Multiplication Factor for Final Composite Score (ARF_FCS) = 0.15 |
A candidate's normalized PI and AWT scores are their scores in the respective field divided by the average of the top 1% scores in the same field, respectively.