IIM Ahmedabad Admission 2027: Cutoff, Fees & Placements

IIM Ahmedabad was founded in 1961 as a collaboration between the Government of India, the Government of Gujarat, Ahmedabad’s industrialists, the Ford Foundation and Harvard Business School. Its 102-acre campus in Vastrapur has two halves joined by an underpass: the red-brick heritage campus, whose Louis I Kahn buildings include the Vikram Sarabhai Library, the classroom complex, the faculty blocks and dormitories D1 to D18, and a newer campus in exposed concrete. The flagship is the two-year MBA, still called the PGP. Alongside it run the two-year MBA-FABM in food and agri-business, the one-year MBA-PGPX for experienced professionals, the blended BPGP for working professionals, a PhD and a one-year MBA at a campus in Dubai.

The MBA (PGP) for the 2027-29 batch admits Indian nationals through CAT 2026. A candidate needs a bachelor’s degree of at least three years after Class 12 with 50% marks or equivalent CGPA (45% for SC, ST and PwD candidates) and must be at least 19 on 30 June 2027. Final-year students can apply if every degree requirement is complete by 30 June 2027; the marksheet and degree certificate are due by 31 December 2027, and a missed deadline cancels the provisional admission. These minimum CAT 2026 percentiles apply before any scoring:

The Admissions Committee can change these cut-offs if the applicant pool or the spread of CAT scores calls for it. Seats are reserved as the Government of India requires: 27% for NC-OBC, 15% for SC, 7.5% for ST, 5% for persons with benchmark disabilities and up to 10% for EWS. The analytical writing test (AWT) and personal interview (PI) are held in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi, and candidates pick two of those cities in the CAT form. IIMA writes only to shortlisted candidates; there are no regret letters.

IIMA shortlists independently of the other IIMs, on a composite score. Sixty-five per cent of it is the CAT 2026 total percentile; the other 35% is an application rating built from five scores and divided by the average of the top 50 ratings in the applicant pool:

The composite is then normalised within the candidate’s undergraduate discipline, one of 20 groups that run from engineering and commerce to law, medicine, design and CA/CS/ICWA, by dividing it by the average of the top 1% of scores in that discipline (never fewer than 5 scores or more than 100). A candidate with degrees in two disciplines is scored in each and keeps the higher. Only then are the CAT cut-offs applied, and the shortlist is drawn so that every reserved category is represented. After the writing test and interview, the final list is ranked on this:

Selection runs separately in each category on that final score. Work experience is capped at 5 points from 36 months onwards, so a longer career adds nothing further to the rating. For a CA, CS or ICWA, the bachelor’s score is the average of the inter and final percentages entered in the CAT form. Marks in every subject on the Class 10 and Class 12 marksheets count, whether or not the board includes them in its own percentage, and withholding an available marksheet can disqualify a candidate.

For the batch that joined in 2026, 8,838 CAT 2025 candidates and 8 GMAT candidates cleared the minimum cut-offs, which were the same percentiles as the 2027-29 minimums, and 1,308 were called for the writing test and interview.

Three of the eight overseas GMAT candidates were shortlisted. The 2026-28 shortlist was drawn differently from the 2027-29 method above: it also set a floor on the average of Class 10 and Class 12 marks, 80 for a science student, 77 for commerce and 75 for arts in the General category, and a floor on bachelor’s marks inside each academic group. Read these numbers as the size of the funnel, not as the rule for 2027. In 2026-28 a first round picked top performers within each academic group, and a second round filled the rest category by category on the composite score.

Indians living abroad and foreign nationals apply to the same MBA (PGP) with a GMAT score instead of CAT.

Shortlisted overseas Indians sit the writing test and interview in India at their own cost; foreign nationals are interviewed by video and send two letters of recommendation. The MBA-FABM (PGP-FABM) admits on CAT 2026 from graduates in agriculture and allied subjects, and from other graduates with a strong interest in agriculture, food and rural sectors, who must also file a form, usually within five days of the shortlist, or lose their place. Agriculture and allied graduates are preferred and face lower minimums; every section also needs a raw score above zero:

The MBA-FABM shortlist score is 65% a normalised CAT score and 35% an application rating whose Class 12 and degree slabs vary by stream and discipline, and its final score weighs the interview at 40%, the writing test at 10% and the composite at 50%.

Neither the 2026-28 nor the 2027-29 rupee fee for the MBA (PGP) or MBA-FABM had been published as of October 2026, so these are the latest figures.

Every PGP student must have a personal computer, which the institute can buy locally on the student’s behalf. A refund on withdrawal keeps back ₹1,000 as a processing fee. IIMA’s need-based scholarships for PGP and PGP-FABM students are set by annual gross family income, assets and number of dependents, with applications each May or June, and many banks lend to admitted students. The MBA-PGPX fee covers tuition, books, accommodation, library and computing; its entry scholarships go up to 25% of the single-room fee and its graduation awards up to 15%.

The MBA (PGP) is fully residential. Twenty-seven dormitories house 740 students, in single rooms set ten to a floor around a stairway, and there are separate flats for married students. The published PGP fee leaves personal expenses on boarding outside it and does not itemise dormitory or mess charges, so ask the admissions office what is billed for each before you budget.

All faculty live on campus, and the heritage buildings by Louis I Kahn are under a conservation and repair programme. Campus visits were not open as of October 2026; IIMA offers a virtual tour instead.

In the 2026 final placements, all 392 MBA (PGP) students who sought a job through the institute accepted an offer, at a median maximum earning potential of ₹37,00,000 and a median guaranteed cash of ₹32,50,000. Of the 402 eligible, 10 stayed out: six looked for jobs outside the process, three started businesses and one joined a family business.

Guaranteed cash is fixed pay plus one-time payments; maximum earning potential adds the most performance pay an offer allows and its other components. The highest offer in India was ₹81,60,000. Counting the six offers abroad, four in Dubai and one each in Hong Kong and Japan, the highest was ₹2,31,03,000 at 30 June 2026 exchange rates.

The 2024 figures cover only the 288 of 386 placed students whose salary details were available. Consulting took 155 of the 392 accepted offers in 2026, banking and financial services 82, and conglomerates and IT 34 each. Accenture Strategy made the most offers, 36 including pre-placement offers, followed by Boston Consulting Group with 33, FinIQ Consulting with 24 and McKinsey & Company with 21, from around 182 participating firms.

All 44 MBA-FABM students who sought placement in 2026 were placed, at a median maximum earning potential of ₹20,51,309. In the one-year MBA-PGPX, 134 of the 139 who sought placement accepted offers and 5 were unplaced.

Four MBA-FABM offers were abroad, two in Ghana and one each in Nigeria and Tanzania. Of the 17 MBA-PGPX graduates who stayed out, 8 were company-sponsored or already employed. Counting the two two-year programmes together, by graduating year:

These count the MBA and MBA-FABM together, so they are not comparable with the MBA (PGP) figures above.

IIM Ahmedabad’s 2026 median is the highest of these four, and its published fee the highest, though each fee covers different things and each median is measured on a different batch and basis.

NIRF Management 2025 placed IIM Ahmedabad 1st, MDI Gurgaon 9th and IIM Kashipur 23rd; in the Financial Times Masters in Management 2026, SPJIMR’s PGDM was 26th and IIMA’s MBA 27th. IIMA and IIM Kashipur award an MBA, SPJIMR and MDI a PGDM. IIMA admits Indian residents on CAT alone, while SPJIMR also takes GMAT for its PGDM. For the one-year route, the MBA-PGPX takes GMAT or GRE and needs four years of work experience. For other options, see our MBA admission guide.