What Is the Difference Between CAT Score and CAT Percentile?

Introduction

Every year, right after CAT results come out, the same question circulates: how does a raw score of 60 translate to a 99 percentile in one year but only a 97 percentile in another? Understanding how a CAT score becomes a CAT percentile  and why the two aren’t the same thing  is essential to reading your result correctly and knowing where you actually stand.

What a CAT Score Actually Is

The CAT score itself is nothing more than the total marks a candidate accumulates across their responses in the exam. A correct answer typically adds 3 marks, an incorrect answer on a multiple-choice question deducts 1 mark, and unattempted questions or correctly answered Type-In-the-Answer (TITA) questions carry no penalty. The total score is simply the sum of marks across all three sections  VARC, DILR, and Quant.

On its own, this number says very little about actual standing. A score of 70 could be excellent in a year when the paper was difficult and overall scores were low, or only average in a year when the exam was comparatively easier and more candidates scored well.

What a CAT Percentile Actually Is

Percentile is a relative measure. It reflects the percentage of test-takers a candidate outperformed, not the absolute score itself. A 99 percentile means scoring higher than 99% of everyone who appeared for CAT that year, independent of what the raw score actually was.

Because percentile is calculated relative to the entire candidate pool, it stays meaningful even as exam difficulty shifts from year to year. This is exactly why CAT relies on percentile rather than raw score for shortlisting  it corrects for differences in paper difficulty and keeps comparisons fair across the full applicant pool.

How a Raw Score Becomes a Percentile

CAT runs across multiple slots on the same day, and difficulty can vary slightly between them. To account for this, CAT uses a process called equipercentile equating, which normalizes scores across slots before percentiles are calculated. In other words, a percentile isn’t based purely on comparing one raw score to everyone else’s raw score  it’s first adjusted to account for which slot a candidate sat in and how that slot’s difficulty compared with the others.

This is also why two candidates with an identical raw score in different slots can end up with slightly different percentiles, and why a precise percentile can’t be predicted with full accuracy until the scorecard is actually released.

Why Percentile Carries More Weight Than Score in Shortlisting

IIMs and other B-schools use percentile, not raw score, as the primary criterion during shortlisting. Landing in the 99th percentile places a candidate among the top 1% of that year’s test-takers, a benchmark that holds steady regardless of how tough or easy that year’s paper was  something a flat score-based cutoff could never guarantee.

This is also why sectional percentile matters just as much as the overall figure. Most IIMs set separate cutoffs for VARC, DILR, and Quant individually, on top of an overall percentile cutoff. Even an excellent overall percentile driven by one strong section offers no protection if the individual cutoff for a weaker section is missed.

What This Means for How You Prepare

Since percentile ultimately decides the shortlist, chasing a specific raw score target matters less than aiming for consistent, balanced performance across all three sections. A candidate who performs reasonably well across VARC, DILR, and Quant will often end up with a stronger overall percentile than one who excels in a single section but underperforms in another, even with a similar total raw score.

This is also why mock test percentiles, when benchmarked against a large enough pool of test-takers, tend to be a more reliable signal of actual readiness than mock test raw scores alone.

Conclusion

A CAT score is simply the raw number of marks earned, while percentile reflects how that score compares against everyone else who took the exam  and it’s percentile, not score, that IIMs actually use for shortlisting. Because percentile accounts for both exam difficulty and slot variation, it remains a fairer and more consistent measure from year to year. Rather than fixating on a specific score target, aiming for balanced, consistent performance across all three sections is what tends to produce a strong percentile in the end.