IIM Raipur opts out of CAP 2025, to conduct independent admission process through CAT scores

IIM Raipur has announced that it will not participate in the Common Admission Process (CAP) 2025, which is used by the second-generation IIMs (Nagapur, Bodh Gaya, Jammu, Kashipur, Ranchi, Sirmaur, Tiruchirappalli, and Udaipur) to conduct admissions interviews.

Similar to previous IIMs, such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta, IIM Bangalore, and IIM Kozhikode, IIM Raipur Director Ram Kumar Kakani said that the institute would independently evaluate candidates directly based on their Common Admission Test (CAT) scores, a group discussion, and a personal interview.

Under the CAP, second-generation IIMs establish a single cut-off percentile for the Common Admission Test (CAT), shortlist individuals for interviews, and allocate an equal number of candidates to institutes, who subsequently conduct interviews online.

“The selected candidates are then fed into a master list, and the list is shared with individual institutes for their decision-making purposes. This essentially means that, as an institute, IIM Raipur was depending on other IIMs for the selection of candidates,” Prof. Kakani said.

IIM Raipur pointed out that a lack of selection autonomy resulted in "inferior" quality candidates gaining admission.

“We are paying special attention to candidate quality as we travel across eight cities to conduct group discussions and personal interviews in a face-to-face format,” Prof. Kakani added.

Previously, the CAP process was completed online, and the institute's costs for conducting virtual interviews were lower than those for the to-be-introduced physical format.

“We were spending ₹25 lakh to ₹30 lakh in the interview process, and that expense will rise up to ₹3 crore as we conduct physical interviews from 2025 onwards, but we feel that independent evaluation is necessary to attract candidates with an entrepreneurial mindset,” Prof. Kakani said.

He further added that IIM Raipur had accepted applicants at a 90 percentile cut-off in 2023.

Likewise, the second week of Jan 2025 would mark the start of the shortlisting of profiles for the next academic year based on candidate preference and competitive CAT cut-offs.

Eight cities—Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Bengaluru, New Delhi, Guwahati, and Raipur—will host the admission interview.

Next year, interviews will take place between Feb 10 and March 9.

“For our two-year MBA programs, we had made 660 offers last year and received 380 acceptances, so we roughly know the estimate of students who will not accept our offer, and we tailor the process of admissions accordingly. The ratio of students turning down our offer has gradually gone down over the years,” he said.

The average cost-to-company (CTC) package for the 2022–2024 batch was ₹18.15 LPA, while the highest CTC package offered upon landing jobs was ₹42.29 LPA.

The average CTC for the older IIMs is higher, ranging from ₹25 LPA to ₹30 LPA.

Prof. Kakani claimed that IIM (Raipur) would rank eighth out of the 21 IIMs in terms of placement statistics.

“Almost all our students get jobs; a few may not accept the offers if they are low, say, for instance, ₹12 LPA, or they are not getting the sector preference they wish for,” he said.

IIM Raipur is in talks with the Chhattisgarh government to launch an MBA program specifically focused on public policy and governance, in addition to its well-liked postgraduate courses in finance, marketing, human resources, operations, logistics, and strategy.

Additionally, it provides MBA specializations in public policy, economics, and the humanities and liberal arts.