IIM Sambalpur vs IIM Raipur: The 85 Door Against the JAP Host

The most concessional printed bar in the IIM series against the host of this cycle’s biggest joint process. IIM Sambalpur asks a flat 90 percentile — and drops it to 85 for every female candidate and every man with a year of relevant work experience, with no sectional cut-offs at all. IIM Raipur hosts JAP 2026, the joint admission process it shares with Kashipur, Ranchi and Trichy, and scores its merit list out of 150. Both documents were re-read today, 18 October 2026. One institute prints its fee to the rupee; the other prints no flagship fee at all.

The two doors, exactly as printed

	IIM Sambalpur (MBA 2026-28)	IIM Raipur (MBA 2026-28)
General bar	90 overall — 85 for all female candidates and 1yr+ work-ex men	JAP 2026 joint shortlist (no institute-specific bar on its page)
Sectional cut-offs	None — a positive scaled score in each section suffices	Per the JAP 2026 common policy
EWS / NC-OBC	80 / 75	JAP-governed; graduation floor 60% both
SC / ST	55 / 40	JAP-governed; graduation floor 50% / 45%
Process shape	Three solo stages; email link to the admission-portal form in January	JAP 2026 host — joint registration and PI with Kashipur, Ranchi, Trichy
Batch	About 320	Not printed on the policy page
Offer acceptance	Rs 50,000, adjusted against Term-1	Rs 1,00,000, adjusted against Term-1

The structural difference is the door itself. Sambalpur publishes its own bar and its own concession in a single table — you can read your position off it today. Raipur’s page points you at the joint portal it hosts: one registration, one interview, and four institutes’ merit lists downstream.

The formulas: the career institute against the school-marks institute

Sambalpur’s Pre-PI score runs out of 75: CAT 40 (computed as 0.31 x overall percentile + 0.03 per section), Class X 3, Class XII 3, graduation 4, work experience 20, gender diversity 5. The work-experience table is the sharpest we have printed: zero below 12 months, 5 at 12, 10 at 18, 15 at 24, the full 20 at exactly 30 months, then declining to zero beyond 48, measured to 31 December 2025. The final merit keeps the components out of 100 and adds the PI at 25.

Raipur’s Final Score runs out of 150: CAT 2025 Index 50 (the scaled section and overall percentiles, equally weighted), PI 40, Class X 15, Class XII 15, work experience 15, gender diversity 8, profile 5, academic diversity 2 — with gender and academic diversity alternatives, not additive. The work-experience band peaks at 36-42 months for the full 15. School marks alone carry 30 of the 150 — the heaviest school block in this series — and the profile line quietly rewards a NIRF-2025 top-ten undergraduate institution (4) and a CFA charter (1).

The bills: printed certainty against no table at all

Raipur prints Rs 20,08,000 for PGP 2026-28, excluding the Rs 30,000 caution deposit, boarding and medical insurance. Year 1 bills Rs 10,37,500 with lodging of Rs 70,500 inside; Year 2 bills Rs 9,70,500. Boarding runs Rs 16,620 per trimester and insurance Rs 1,500 a year on top; the Rs 1,00,000 offer acceptance adjusts against Term-1. The document was re-read today.

Sambalpur’s flagship MBA fee is not published anywhere. Its /admission/ page serves today — contact blocks and the three policy PDFs — but no fee table, and the only signed institute fee on record is the MBA-BA Delhi programme’s Rs 17,25,000. We state that gap rather than quote an aggregator. Until the institute prints, treat any figure for the flagship as unverified, and expect the offer letter to carry the binding number.

The quota question, answered from print

Neither institute prints any management, institutional or discretionary route — no IIM does. Raipur’s policy closes with the Government of India reservation framework and a misrepresentation clause; Sambalpur’s runs its three stages off the CAT alone under the same law. An agent quoting a priced seat at either campus is selling the thing those sentences name.

Who should pick which

• Pick Sambalpur if your percentile sits in the 85-89 band (85 if the concession covers you), your sectionals are uneven — there are no sectional gates — or your profile carries roughly 24-36 months of real work experience. Accept that the fee is unpublished and plan with the offer letter, not a rumour.
• Pick Raipur if your Class X and XII marks are strong (30 of 150 marks), you interview well (40 more), and you want the printed Rs 20,08,000 certainty beside the joint-process convenience of one PI for four IIMs.
• Either way — register on the joint JAP 2026 portal for Raipur and watch your email for Sambalpur’s January link. The institutes’ own pages carry the operative dates; no third party does.