IIM Sambalpur Cutoff

IIM Sambalpur MBA CAT cutoff: 2026–28 policy reference

IIM Sambalpur’s published MBA 2026–28 admission policy set minimum overall CAT 2025 percentiles for initial shortlisting, with a positive raw score required in every section but no separate sectional-percentile cutoff. The institute explicitly says these are minimum eligibility thresholds, not an entitlement to an interview or admission, and reserves the right to revise criteria during that batch’s process. The admission portal now marks MBA and MBA-BA admissions closed. These figures are a historical policy reference only; do not use them as a forecast for a later batch.

Published Stage 1 thresholds

For the MBA 2026–28 batch, the policy’s CAT 2025 table gives these minimum overall percentiles:

TableCards

Category	Minimum overall percentile
General	90
EWS	80
NC-OBC	75
SC	55
ST	40
DAP	40

The policy adds a General-category relaxation to 85 percentile for male candidates with at least one year of relevant work experience and for all female candidates. It separately requires a positive (greater than zero) raw score in every CAT section. “No sectional percentile cutoff” therefore does not mean that a zero or negative sectional raw score qualifies. These conditions were stated for CAT 2025 and the 2026–28 MBA batch.

What the threshold does and does not mean

The thresholds were the first filter. The policy says eligible CAT 2025 candidates who selected IIM Sambalpur in their CAT preferences would be considered at Stage 1. Candidates who cleared the minimums were to receive a link to complete an institute application, and only those who submitted it by the stipulated deadline could move forward. The institute then calculated a pre-PI score out of 75 using CAT score (40), Class X (3), Class XII (3), graduation (4), work experience (20) and gender diversity (5). Shortlisting for the personal interview depended on category-wise requirements and institute decisions; the minimum percentile alone did not secure a PI call.

The policy does not publish the number of candidates who crossed each threshold, the score of the last person invited to interview, or the lowest final admission score by category. Those values cannot be reconstructed from the minimum-percentile table. A minimum threshold is therefore not a probability estimate and should not be compared with a reported final admission score as though the two measured the same stage.

The policy’s final merit score adds the normalized personal interview score (25) to those 75 pre-PI points, for a 100-point total. Final offers were based on final merit rank within category. This explains why a minimum CAT threshold should not be read as the score of the last admitted candidate: the selection process incorporated academic history, work experience, diversity and interview performance after the first filter.

CAT score was not the percentile alone

For the 2026–28 policy, the CAT component of the pre-PI score was defined as:

0.31 × overall percentile + 0.03 × VARC percentile + 0.03 × QA percentile + 0.03 × DILR percentile

The total weight of this formula is 40 points. It is a transformation used in the institute’s selection score, not a new CAT cutoff or a CAT raw-score formula. The positive raw score condition applied separately to all sections. The policy also said it could increase, lower or relax percentile criteria if needed to shortlist enough candidates in each category.

Work-experience and category details

The policy counted completed, relevant post-graduation work experience as of 31 December 2025. It awarded 5 points at 12 months, 10 at 18 months, 15 at 24 months and a maximum 20 at 30 months; the score then declined to 15 at 36 months, 10 at 42 months, 5 at 48 months and zero above 48 months, with interpolation between listed month marks. Internships, in-course work, required apprenticeship/article-ship and unpaid work were excluded. This schedule helps explain why “more experience” did not automatically produce a higher score under that batch’s formula.

The policy states that sufficient candidates would be shortlisted by category in accordance with the Government of India reservation policy and records its category percentages. Those policy entries describe that batch’s selection framework; they are not a substitute for checking the applicant’s valid category documentation or later-cycle rules.

For applicants to a later batch

As of this page’s review, the institute portal says admissions for the MBA and MBA-BA programmes are closed and links the 2026–28 policies. No later-batch cutoff should be inferred from the 2026–28 values. When a new policy appears, compare its category table, raw-score condition, relaxation rules, score weights, work-experience date and stage definitions directly. The institute may change thresholds before completing a process, so use the current policy and applicant portal rather than a prior-year summary or an aggregator’s predicted cutoff.

This page covers only the MBA 2026–28 policy. MBA-BA has a separate admission policy and should not inherit these MBA numbers. CAT percentile is also only one input to the process: a threshold is not a guaranteed shortlist, interview, offer or admission result.