IIM Sambalpur vs IIM Trichy: No Sectionals Against the 95.25 Table

The two ends of the second-generation IIM bar spectrum. 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 Trichy’s JAP 2026 table asks 95.25 with 75 in every section. Both documents were re-read today, 18 October 2026. One institute prints a full six-term fee table; the other prints no flagship fee at all.

The two bars, exactly as printed

	IIM Sambalpur (MBA 2026-28)	IIM Trichy (PGPM 2026-28)
General bar	90 overall — 85 for all female candidates and 1yr+ work-ex men	95.25 overall
Sectional cut-offs	None — a positive scaled score in each section suffices	75 / 75 / 75
EWS / NC-OBC	80 / 75	89 / 88.5 (60s sectional)
SC / ST	55 / 40	75 / 44 (45s / 25s sectional)
Process shape	Three solo stages; email link to the admission-portal form in January	JAP 2026 joint interview (Raipur hosts; ten PI venues)
Batch	About 320	Not printed on the admissions page
Offer acceptance	Rs 50,000, adjusted against Term-1	Rs 1,00,000, inside the Term-I payment

Read Trichy’s 95.25 beside its sectionals: the 75/75/75 floor is the quiet gate that ends more applications than the headline number — a candidate at 96 overall with a 74 in one section does not clear it. Sambalpur has no such gate at all; its 85 concession is not a points bonus but a five-point lowering of the bar itself, covering every female candidate.

The formulas: the percentile-blend against the straight read

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 peaks at exactly 30 months for the full 20, zero below 12 and beyond 48, measured to 31 December 2025. The final merit runs out of 100 with the PI at 25.

Trichy’s final takes the CAT percentile straight at 52%, the PI at 20%, work experience at 10% — peaking at 24-29 months, with the same 31 December 2025 measurement date — Class X 2%, Class XII 3%, undergraduate performance 5%, gender diversity 6% for female candidates, and academic diversity 2% reserved for non-engineering graduates with a first class. One institute converts your percentile into a blended score before weighing it; the other spends half its final on the percentile itself.

The bills: the printed six-term table against no table at all

Trichy prints Rs 19.5 lakh for 2026-28 excluding the caution deposit and mess advance — Term I Rs 3,79,000 with the Rs 1,00,000 acceptance, Rs 30,000 caution and Rs 24,000 mess advance inside, Terms II-VI Rs 3,49,000 each — Rs 21,24,000 across the six terms as printed. The same page carries the AFWS half-waiver of the academic fee for 2% of the batch (verified on this URL earlier this week; today’s re-read confirms the fee table unchanged).

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. Trichy’s page closes with the Government of India reservation policy as notified in the CAT 2025 bulletin; Sambalpur’s policy runs its three stages off the CAT 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 85-95 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 Trichy if you clear 95.25 with 75 sectionals, your CAT is the strongest part of your file — 52% of the final — and you want the printed Rs 21,24,000 six-term certainty beside the JAP joint interview’s single-PI convenience.
• Either way — one JAP registration covers Trichy (with Raipur, Kashipur and Ranchi); Sambalpur’s own link arrives by email in January. The institutes’ own pages carry the operative dates; no third party does.