CAT Admission Process 2022

The CAT admission  process takes place in January every year. Just after the release of CAT results, IIMs starts shortlisting students based on their CAT score for Written Ability Test (WAT)/ Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interviews (PI). 

Also Read: Criteria for admission to IIMs

In CAT admission process, Candidates have to submit their applications to their desired IIM and then the said IIM shortlists the candidate based on the cutoff and academic profile for WAT- PI. The whole CAT admission process usually takes around 3-4 months to complete.

The CAT admission are done based on three parameters, namely, CAT score, Written Ability Test (WAT)/ Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interviews (PI). The three steps to CAT admission process includes:

1. Shortlisting of Candidates

A list of shortlisted candidates for the next level of selection are made available on the individual IIM websites on the basis of CAT score. Each IIM will send interview letters to the candidates it has short-listed. The criteria for short-listing varies for every IIM.

2. WAT/GD and PI round

In this stage, IIMs conducts WAT/GD and PI round for the shortlisted candidate. Please note that each IIM shortlists candidates for a second stage of selection which may be independent of each other. The process may include either one/two or all of these three:

1. Written Ability Test (WAT)
   
2. Group Discussions (GD) 
3. Personal Interviews (PI)

3. Final selection

In the final selection round, candidates are scored on the basis of their academic performance. Tabulated below are the selection parameters for the final round: