The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has introduced major changes to its admission criteria for the Post Graduate Programme (PGP) 2027–29 batch. Candidates appearing for CAT 2026 will face a revised shortlisting process that places greater emphasis on academic performance across school and graduation, alongside entrance test results.
Under the new admission framework, IIMA has replaced stream-specific school rating tables with a common percentage-based system for Class 10, Class 12 and graduation marks. It has also expanded its undergraduate academic classification from six broad groups to 22 distinct disciplines to ensure a fairer comparison among candidates from different educational backgrounds.
Institute officials said the revised system aims to account for differences in grading patterns across universities and assess applicants more fairly against students from similar academic disciplines.
Undergraduate disciplines divided into 22 categories
Under the revised normalisation method, candidates will be assessed according to their specific undergraduate discipline rather than a broad academic stream.
Their composite graduation marks will be compared with the average marks of the top 1% of candidates in their respective discipline among the 22 categories.
The change is expected to reduce the disadvantage faced by students from academically demanding technical courses. Earlier, commerce, finance and management were grouped together, while arts, humanities, law and design shared a common category.
Under the new system, commerce and management will be assessed separately, law will be distinguished from arts, and journalism will have its own category. This is intended to make comparisons fairer between students from disciplines with different marking patterns.
Common percentage-based system for academic marks
IIMA has also scrapped separate school-level rating tables for science, commerce and arts students. A unified percentage-based scale will now apply to Class 10, Class 12 and undergraduate marks.
According to the explanatory guidelines, candidates scoring above 90% will receive 10 points, while those scoring between 80% and 90% will receive eight points under the revised academic scoring system.
CAT percentile may reduce the advantage of higher scores
Another significant change concerns the use of CAT performance in the preliminary shortlisting process. The revised framework uses CAT percentile rather than the normalised test score, potentially reducing the difference in points awarded to candidates with high percentiles.
CAT mentor Manish Shah said the change could make academic records and work experience more influential in determining admission calls.
He explained that, with a minimum eligibility requirement of the 95th percentile for General category candidates already in place last year, the use of percentiles instead of normalised scores would narrow the range of points awarded for CAT performance.
Shah said the Application Rating, which carries 35% weightage, could become a more decisive factor. According to him, a 10-percentage-point improvement in Class 10 or Class 12 marks could increase the application rating by two points — more than the gain from improving a CAT percentile from 97 to 100.
He added that the revised framework could favour candidates with strong academic records and work experience, making consistent performance throughout their education increasingly important in the selection process.