IIM Raipur vs IIM Trichy: One JAP Interview, Two Formulas, Priced

Two JAP 2026 partners, one joint interview — and two merit formulas that reward very different candidates. IIM Raipur’s printed PGP 2026-28 fee totals Rs 20,08,000. IIM Trichy’s prints Rs 19.5 lakh. Both pages were re-read today, 7 October 2026. The sticker gap is Rs 58,000 in Trichy’s favour; the all-in gap, once both mess bills are counted, is about Rs 16,720 — still Trichy’s. The more interesting difference is what each campus does with the same interview.

The two bills, side by side

	IIM Raipur (PGP 2026-28)	IIM Trichy (PGPM 2026-28)
Printed total	Rs 20,08,000	Rs 19,50,000
Year split	Y1 Rs 10,37,500; Y2 Rs 9,70,500	Term 1 Rs 3,25,000 (incl. acceptance); Terms 2-6 Rs 3,25,000
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 24,000 per term (Rs 1,44,000 over six)
Caution deposit	Rs 30,000, refundable, at registration	Rs 30,000, refundable, at admission
Other extras	Medical insurance Rs 1,500 a year	None printed beyond mess revision terms
Offer acceptance	Rs 1,00,000, adjusted in Term I	Rs 1,00,000, inside Term 1
All-in (deposits excluded)	About Rs 21,10,720	Rs 20,94,000
Fee waivers	Not printed on the fee page	AFWS — 50% academic-fee waiver for 2% of the batch, on need
Document	Official fee-structure page	Official PGPM admissions page

The honest label: Trichy is cheaper by Rs 58,000 on the sticker and by about Rs 16,720 once each side’s mess and insurance lines are added — Raipur’s lower mess rate (Rs 16,620 against Rs 24,000 a term) claws back about Rs 44,000 of the sticker gap but not all of it. Both totals already carry lodging, and both institutes print that fees can be revised.

One interview, two formulas — the difference that actually decides this

Both campuses admit through JAP 2026. One registration on the portal IIM Raipur hosts (jap2026.iimraipur.edu.in), one common shortlist with IIMs Kashipur and Ranchi, one joint Personal Interview across Bangalore, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and the four campuses. 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 — with the gender and academic diversity marks as alternatives. Trichy computes out of 100: CAT 52%, PI 20%, work experience 10%, Class X 2%, Class XII 3%, UG performance 5%, gender 6%, academic diversity 2%. The identical interview is worth 26.7% of Raipur’s total and 20% of Trichy’s; the identical CAT percentile is worth 33% at Raipur and 52% at Trichy. School marks matter six times as much at Raipur (30 of 150) as at Trichy (5 of 100).

The floors and the waitlists

Trichy prints its JAP-era cut-off table in full: General 95.25 overall with 75 in every section, stepping down through EWS 89 and NC-OBC 88.5 to DAP 30 — and warns the table is necessary but not sufficient. Raipur’s shortlist runs inside the common JAP policy, but its own page adds a separate gate Trichy does not print: minimum graduation marks for the merit list — 60% for General, EWS and NC-OBC, 50% for SC, 45% for ST and PwD. On the exit side, Trichy published the season’s fullest waitlist calendar: merit list 7 May 2026, eleven dated rounds to 23 June, and category-wise movement reaching General waitlist 405. Raipur keeps its waiting-list size at institute discretion.

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 Raipur’s policy states that all admission communication comes from its Admissions Office alone. An agent quoting a priced seat at either campus is selling the thing that sentence exists 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 21 lakh decision.

Who should pick which

• Pick Trichy if your CAT percentile is your strongest card (52% weight), you carry 24-29 months of full-time work experience (its bands peak there), or the lower bill matters — it prints lower at every level, and its AFWS gives 2% of the batch a 50% academic-fee waiver on need.
• 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 — and you comfortably clear its 60% graduation floor.
• Either way — one JAP registration reaches both, so there is no either/or at the application stage. Register on the JAP portal when it opens after the CAT result, and read each campus’s own page, not an aggregator, for the formula that will rank you.