CAT is a national level entrance examination which is accepted by more than 100 well-reputed institutions in India. Each year approximately 2 lakhs students appear for the CAT examination and for the ease of the humongous crowd, the CAT exam is conducted in more than 140 cities spread across the nation. The test is scheduled for 25 November 2018 and the CAT cut off and the result will release in the third week of January.
After the declaration of results, each of the CAT participating institutes will release its own cut off, including the 20 IIMs. For IIMs and some of the other participating institutes as well, candidates must qualify the sectional as well as the overall cutoff in order to get shortlisted for the next rounds of the selection process – WAT-GD/PI.
CAT Cut Off Determining Factors
- Number of the candidates appearing for the exam
- Number of seats available
- The difficulty level of the exam
- Institute’s reputation or ranking
It has been seen that the cut off for old IIMs and top notch B-schools such as FMS (University of Delhi), MDI Gurgaon, SPJIMR Mumbai, etc. goes over 99 percentile. Whereas, for the B-schools of tier two, the cut off remains below 90 percentile.
IIM CAT Cut Off
IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta, and IIM Lucknow have already released the CAT exam cut off as per the provisions for different categories and the rest of the IIMs are expected to release IIM CAT cut off soon.
IIM Ahmedabad Cut Off
| Category | VARC | DI & LR | QA | Overall percentile |
| General | 70 | 70 | 70 | 80 |
| NC-OBC cum Transgender | 65 | 65 | 65 | 75 |
| SC | 60 | 60 | 60 | 70 |
| ST | 50 | 50 | 50 | 60 |
| PWD (General, NC-OBC-cum-transgender, SC) | 60 | 60 | 60 | 70 |
IIM Calcutta Cut off 2018
| Category | QA | DI & LR | VARC | Overall percentile |
| General | ≥80 | ≥80 | ≥80 | ≥90 |
| NC-OBC | ≥75 | ≥75 | ≥75 | ≥85 |
| SC | ≥65 | ≥65 | ≥65 | ≥70 |
| ST | ≥60 | ≥60 | ≥60 | ≥70 |
| PWD/DA | ≥60 | ≥60 | ≥60 | ≥70 |
IIM Lucknow CAT Cut off 2018
| Category | PGP | PGP-ABM | PGP-SM | |||||||||||
| VARC | DI & LR | QA | Total | VARC | DI & LR | QA | Total | VARC | DI & LR | QA | Total | |||
| General | 85 | 85 | 85 | 90 | 80 | 80 | 80 | 85 | 80 | 80 | 80 | 85 | ||
| NC-OBC | 77 | 77 | 77 | 82 | 72 | 72 | 72 | 77 | 72 | 72 | 72 | 77 | ||
| SC | 55 | 55 | 55 | 70 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 65 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 65 | ||
| ST | 50 | 50 | 50 | 65 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 60 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 60 | ||
| PWD | 50 | 50 | 50 | 65 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 60 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 60 | ||
Expected CAT Cut off for Other participating colleges
There are more than 120 institutes participating in the CAT exam 2018, out of which 20 are IIMs only. So, here is the list of expected Cut offs for some of the CAT participating institutes. Please note that IIMs have no authority over the cutoffs for these institutes. Also, registering for the CAT or IIMs does not register you for these colleges. Candidates have to register themselves in each of the colleges separately.
| B-School | Expected CAT Cut off |
| Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi (FMS, DU) | 98.20 Percentile |
| DMS, IIT Delhi | 98+ Percentile |
| SJMSOM, IIT Bombay | 99+ Percentile |
| Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras | 95+ Percentile |
| Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon | 95+ Percentile |
| SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) Mumbai | 85+ Percentile |
| Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneswar (XIMB) | 90+ Percentile |
| Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad | 90+ Percentile |
| National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) Mumbai | 95+ Percentile |
| T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) Manipal | 85+ Percentile |
| Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA) Chennai | 90+ Percentile |
Overview of the CAT Exam Pattern
| CAT Question Paper Pattern | Details |
Duration of the Test | 3 hours or 180 minutes |
Total Number of Sections in CAT | 3 |
Sectional Duration | 1 hour or 60 minutes |
Total Number of Questions in CAT | 100 |
CAt Total Marks | 300 |
Marks per question | 3 |
Negative marking for wrong answer | -1 |
CAT Marking Scheme
As per the CAT exam pattern, the number of questions asked varies in each section – 34 question is Quantitative and VA-Rc both, while 32 questions in DI-LR. In the CAT exam, the candidate is awarded 3 marks for each correct answer ( for all the sections) whereas, one mark is deducted for each incorrect answer. However, there is no negative marking for any unattempted question. Also, in the previous year, it has been observed that there was no negative marking for the non-MCQs.
After the CAT 2018 result is declared the participating institutes will shortlist the candidates for the further selection rounds where most of the colleges conduct – GD, PI and WAT. Candidates are then selected on the basis of the accumulation of their CAT score along with GD, PI and WAT.
