By safe score, I assume you are enquiring about the IIM Ahmedabad minimum cutoff. 

Admission to the top MBA colleges in India including IIMs requires a minimum CAT cutoff of 90 percentile. Tier-1 IIMs such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow, and IIM Kozhikode have a high cutoff around 99+ whereas Tier 2 IIMs requires CAT cut off around 70-80 percentile. 

CAT cut-off 2022 for admission to the IIMs is in the range between 95-100 percentile for all categories. For General category students, the CAT 2022 cut-off percentile for top IIMs is around 98-100 percentile and the cutoff is lower in the case of Reserved Category and baby IIMs. 

Specifically speaking of IIM Ahmedabad, the overall qualifying CAT cut-off is

• General Category: 80 percentile 
• NC-ONC and Transgender Categories: 75 percentile 
• SC and PwD: 70 percentile
• ST: 60 percentile 

The IM Ahmedabad shortlisting process has begun and the institute has notified the eligible candidates. 

Firstly, it’s important to note that there are 2 types of CAT cutoffs for IIM admission: qualifying cutoff and final cutoff

Admission to IIMs or in fact any top B School requires the minimum CAT 2023 cutoff is expected to be the 90 percentile. A 99+ CAT percentile makes you eligible to apply for top IIMs like IIM Bangalore, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Lucknow, IIM Calcutta, and IIM Kozhikode. In fact, a 98+ in the CAT percentile guarantees a call from these Iimss. 

Some top IIMs that sends calls to 98+ score are 

• IIM Lucknow
• IIM Bangalore
• IIM Kozhikode
• IIM Ahmedabad
• IIM Calcutta
• IIM Shillong
• IIM Indore

However, a very important point to consider is that these IIMs include other parameters for final selection. Usually, maximum weightage is given to CAT followed by academic profile, work experience, and gender diversity. So, a CAT score does not necessarily guarantee admission to IIM Ahmedabad.

For instance, a candidate with 100 percentile but no work experience might not get admission while a candidate with 95 percentile but excellent work experience might get admission to IIM Ahmedabad. So all factors should be considered and not just the CAT score.

Yes, IIM Ahmedabad is one of the IIMs that gives calls to candidates at the 95 percentile. Here are some other IIMs that accept the CAT percentile in the range of 90-95. You can refer to the cutoffs of these colleges before admissions.

The IIMs have released their 2023 qualifying CAT cutoffs in their admission brochures. 

Here are the 2023 category-wise qualifying CAT cutoffs for IIM Ahmedabad admissions-

The expected final CAT 2023 cutoff for IIM Ahmedabad is 99 (if you have 80+ percentage in 10th, 12th and Bachelor’s). If not, around 99.5+ percentile is a decent CAT score to expected a call.

To secure admission into IIM Ahmedabad, you need a very high percentile in the CAT examination. But percentile is not the only criteria, and the final selection also depends on other factors like Analytical Writing Test (AWT), Personal Interview (PI), etc. 

Moreover, the 99-99.5+ criteria is for engineering students. This has been done to maintain batch diversity. General students from other backgrounds can get a call and convert successfully at less than 90 percentile. 

Keep a track of the updated final cutoffs as soon as IIM Ahmedabad releases the admission criteria 2024-26. 

The 99.5+ percentile requirement is for candidates from an engineering background.

This is because 90 percent of CAT aspirants are engineers. 

A few years back, one of my friends with less than 90 percentile in CAT got a call from IIM Ahmedabad, and converted successfully. He was from the general category, and had a non engineering background. 

The aim of IIM Ahmedabad is to maintain batch diversity. 99.5 percentile means roughly 1000 candidates, far more than the quota for engineering background. 

The final cutoff is much lower for candidates from other academic backgrounds. Moreover, the final selections are not solely based on CAT percentile.