What if your CAT score is low?

After the results of the CAT exams, your focus must have now shifted to the admission options to different B-schools, depending on your scores or percentile in the CAT. Don’t panic if you haven’t scored well in your CAT 2025 exams. You can still get admission in the top B schools in India.
You may find answers to these questions as well.
What if you do not fare well in CAT? What options that you have after a low score in CAT?
How will you still be able to get into a top B-school?

Taxila Business School

• Highest Placement Rs 22 Lakh / PA
• Average Placement Rs 12.50 Lakh / PA
• SpecializationTriple Specialization with Business Analytics compulsory.
• Ranking 10th All India.
• RatingAAA+

Here now explore options for the top B schools:

You might get disappointed with your CAT results, but you should not lose heart, as you may still get calls from Top B-schools that give very low weightage to CAT exam scores, like CAT or XAT.

Such B-schools select the candidates on other parameters, which may include your past higher academics, and with a percentile range as low as 30- 70, you might get a chance to get selected.

Thus, you should explore your B-school based on your past academics.

Besides CAT and XAT scores, top B-schools look for other components like academic profile, extra-curricular activity, soft skills, personal traits, attitude, and social behavior, along with many other personal characteristics, while finalizing admission offers.

Many B-schools, CAT or XAT scores, carry only 20-30 per cent weightage in their selection process. For example, the Taxila B School considers only 10% of your CAT score.

How will you still be able to get into a top B-school?

Your scores on exams like CAT should be one of the components during the admission process. There are other aspects like academic performance, personality traits, and other skills that carry major weightage for admission to PGDM/MBA.

Thus, despite your low percentile in CAT, many good Business schools may select you as the entrance exam scores are not the deciding factor for them. If you are still not satisfied with the Business school options that you are getting based on your CAT scores, you must now gear up for other MBA entrance examinations that are scheduled to be conducted in the next two months.

You can explore admission opportunities in top Business schools by taking two more MBA entrance examinations, like CMAT & MAH-CET, which will be conducted in February and March, respectively. A good score in CMAT can also bring you admission opportunities.

Top Business schools accepting CMAT like:

• JBIMS- Mumbai,
• DMS -NIT Durgapur,
• SIMSREE-Mumbai amongst public institutions
• Taxila Business School- Jaipur
• Great Lakes Institute of Management- Chennai
• Prin. LN Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research- Mumbai
• KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research- Mumbai
• Institute of Public Enterprise-Hyderabad
• Balaji Institute of Modern Management (BIMM) –Pune
• Jaipuria Institute of Management – Lucknow

amongst many other private Business schools in India.

You can also read…

Top 50 Business Schools in India

Prepare for the remaining MBA exams and GD-PI-WAT simultaneously.

So, what should be your next steps now?  Since two important MBA exams are scheduled in the next two months and many Business schools are planning their GD-PI in the next few weeks, your preparation for the written test and GD-PI should go hand in hand.

List of Top 10 Business Schools as per IIRF 2025 rankings is as follows: