IIM Raipur vs IIM Ranchi: the JAP Host Against Its Partner, Priced

The last unbuilt pair inside JAP 2026 is the most asymmetric one: the host against its partner. IIM Raipur’s printed PGP 2026-28 fee totals Rs 20,08,000. IIM Ranchi’s signed fee table totals Rs 19,20,000. Both documents were re-read today, 8 October 2026. The sticker gap is Rs 88,000 in Ranchi’s favour; the all-in gap, once both mess bills are counted, narrows to about Rs 20,620 — still Ranchi’s. And the campus running the joint interview is not the campus whose formula rewards it most.

The two bills, side by side

	IIM Raipur (PGP 2026-28)	IIM Ranchi (MBA 2025-27, signed)
Printed total	Rs 20,08,000	Rs 19,20,000
Structure	Y1 Rs 10,37,500; Y2 Rs 9,70,500	Term 1 Rs 3,45,000; Terms 2-6 Rs 3,15,000
Lodging	Inside (Rs 70,500 a year, twin-sharing)	Inside the printed fee
Mess	Outside — Rs 16,620 per trimester (about Rs 99,720 over six)	Outside — Rs 28,350 per term (Rs 1,70,100 over six)
Caution deposit	Rs 30,000, refundable, at registration	Rs 20,000, refundable, at admission
Other extras	Medical insurance Rs 1,500 a year	Alumni fee Rs 10,000 (inside the total)
Offer acceptance	Rs 1,00,000, adjusted in Term I	Rs 1,10,000, treated as Term-1 tuition
All-in (deposits excluded)	About Rs 21,10,720	About Rs 20,90,100
Document	Official fee-structure page, current batch	Signed PDF, 2025-27 batch — the most recent published

The honest labels matter here. Ranchi’s signed table is one batch behind Raipur’s printed one — if Ranchi prints a 2026-28 table at a revised figure, this gap moves; we will re-read it the day it appears. On what exists today, Ranchi is cheaper by Rs 88,000 on the sticker and by about Rs 20,620 once each side’s mess and insurance lines are added — Ranchi’s mess is the priciest in this JAP series at Rs 28,350 a term, clawing back Rs 67,380 of its own sticker advantage but not all of it.

One interview, two formulas — and only one campus runs the portal

Both campuses admit through JAP 2026, and Raipur is the host. The registration portal (jap2026.iimraipur.edu.in), the common shortlist with IIMs Kashipur and Tiruchirappalli, the joint Personal Interview across Bangalore, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and the four campuses — Raipur’s admissions office coordinates the machinery both merit lists draw from. A candidate in the JAP pool is a candidate at both.

What each campus then does with that interview diverges sharply. Raipur computes a Final Score out of 150: CAT 2025 Index 50, PI 40, Class X 15, Class XII 15, work experience 15, gender diversity 8, profile 5, academic diversity 2 — gender and academic diversity as alternatives. Ranchi’s most recent published criteria (8 May 2025, written for the CAP era and carried until a JAP-era Ranchi document appears) compute out of 100: CAT 65 — scored by section, with quant alone worth 35 — profile 20, and PI plus WAT just 15, with a flat 5-mark gender bonus on top. The identical interview is worth 26.7% of Raipur’s total and 12.5% of Ranchi’s published PI slice; the identical CAT percentile is worth a third of Raipur’s total and nearly two-thirds of Ranchi’s.

The floors and the fine print

Ranchi’s published table prints General 95 overall with 75 in every section, stepping down through EWS 81 and NC-OBC 81 to ST and DAP 42 — and warns the figures are indicative, not entitlement. Raipur’s shortlist runs inside the common JAP policy, and its own page adds a separate gate Ranchi does not print: minimum graduation marks for merit-list entry — 60% for General, EWS and NC-OBC, 50% for SC, 45% for ST and PwD. On work experience, the two peak bands point at different careers: Raipur’s 15-mark block tops out at 36-42 months (and declines past 48), while Ranchi’s published 10-mark block peaks beyond 24-36 months and zeroes past 48. Raipur prints no deferment of offers; Ranchi’s document prints its reservation and dispute clauses under Ranchi jurisdiction.

The quota question, answered from print

Neither institute prints any management, institutional or discretionary route — no IIM does. Both seats move through CAT and JAP 2026 under Government of India reservation law, and both documents state that admission communication comes only from the institute’s own admissions office. An agent quoting a priced seat at either campus is selling the thing those sentences exist to warn about.

The placement evidence, stated honestly

Both are second-generation IIMs with published placement seasons behind them, but neither publishes the audited, denominator-clear salary tables our placement-report methodology asks for. We state that rather than borrow aggregator averages. When either institute’s official report reaches you, run the five checks in our placement-report guide before letting it settle a Rs 20 lakh decision.

Who should pick which

• Pick Ranchi if your CAT percentile — especially your quant scaled score — is your strongest card (its published formula weights CAT at 65, with quant alone at 35), you carry 24-36 months of full-time work experience, or the lower bill matters: it prints lower at every level on today’s documents.
• Pick Raipur if your interview and school record are your strengths — its formula gives the PI 40 of 150 and school marks 30 of 150 — you comfortably clear its 60% graduation floor, and your work experience sits in its longer 36-42-month peak band.
• Either way — one JAP registration reaches both, on the portal Raipur itself hosts, so there is no either/or at the application stage. Register when the portal opens after the CAT result, and read each campus’s own page, not an aggregator, for the formula that will rank you.