The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have released the detailed methodology for the scoring and equating process for the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2025. With the exam scheduled to be held in three sessions on November 30, 2025, understanding the normalisation process is crucial for every MBA aspirant. This process ensures fairness and equity when comparing the performance of candidates who have taken different test forms across the morning, afternoon, and evening sessions.
Why is IIM CAT 2025 Normalisation Required?
CAT 2025 will be administered in three sessions, each with a different test form. While the overall difficulty level is aimed to be consistent, slight variations are inevitable. The normalisation process statistically adjusts for these differences in difficulty, ensuring that no candidate is at an advantage or disadvantage based on which session they appeared in. This establishes a level playing field, making scores comparable across all sessions.
Check Official Notification Here
The IIM CAT 2025 Two-Step Process: Scaled Scores and Percentiles
The CAT 2025 score calculation is a two-stage process:
- Calculation of Scaled Scores for each section and the total.
- Conversion of these Scaled Scores into Percentile Scores for final reporting and shortlisting.
Step 1: How the IIM CAT 2025 Scaled Score is Calculated
The scaled score is a normalized version of your raw score (the actual number of correct answers). The process is detailed for each section Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Ability (QA). Here’s a simplified breakdown using the QA section as an example:
- Session-wise Statistics: The mean (average) and standard deviation (a measure of spread) of raw scores are calculated for all candidates in each of the three sessions.
- Overall Statistics: The overall mean and standard deviation for all candidates across all sessions are calculated.
- Top Performer Benchmark: The mean raw score of the top 0.1% of candidates is calculated for each individual session and for the entire population.
- The Scaling Formula: A candidate’s scaled score is calculated using a formula that considers:
- Their own raw score ((R)).
- The statistical parameters (mean and standard deviation) of their specific session.
- The statistical parameters of the entire candidate pool.
- The performance of the top 0.1% candidates.
For a candidate in the morning session, the formula is: Check formula Here
Similar formulas are applied for the afternoon and evening sessions, using their respective session-specific data. This method ensures that the scaled score reflects a candidate’s performance relative to peers in their session and the entire test-taking population.
Important Note: If this formula yields a scaled score of more than 100 in any section, it will be rounded down to 100.
Step 2: How the IIM CAT 2025 Percentile Score is Calculated
After the scaled scores are finalized for all candidates, they are converted into percentiles. The percentile score indicates the percentage of candidates who scored less than you.
The process for calculating the percentile in the QA section is as follows:
- Total Candidates (N): The total number of candidates who appeared for CAT 2025 is determined.
- Rank Assignment (r): All candidates are assigned a rank based on their scaled scores in the QA section. If multiple candidates have the same score, they are assigned the same rank. For example, if two candidates have the highest score, both get rank 1, and the next candidate gets rank 3.
- Percentile Calculation (P): The percentile for a candidate with rank (r) is calculated (Check Notification PDF)
- Rounding Off: The calculated percentile is rounded off to two decimal places. For instance, a percentile of 99.995 or above becomes 100, and 99.985 to 99.994 becomes 99.99.
This same methodology is used to compute the overall CAT percentile and the percentiles for the VARC and DILR sections.
Key Takeaways for CAT 2025 Aspirants
- Focus on Your Performance: The normalisation process is designed to be fair. Your primary goal should be to maximize your own raw score.
- Session Difficulty is Accounted For: Do not worry about getting a “tougher” session. The scaling process neutralizes any perceived advantages or disadvantages.
- Percentile is Key: Ultimately, it is your percentile score, not your scaled score, that IIMs and other B-schools use for shortlisting. A 99 percentile means you have scored better than 99% of the candidates.
With the CAT 2025 application window open from August 1 to September 13, 2025, aspirants are advised to understand this process and focus on a consistent and strategic preparation to secure a high percentile.
