IPMAT Exam: IIM Indore & IIM Rohtak — Eligibility, Pattern, Cutoff, Fees & Placements

Programme Structure

Both institutes run the same broad shape: a 3-year foundation phase in core business and analytical fundamentals, followed directly by a 2-year MBA phase that merges into the institute’s flagship postgraduate cohort — IIM Indore’s PGP and IIM Rohtak’s PGPM. Complete all five years and you walk out with a dual BBA + MBA credential from an Institute of National Importance under the IIM Act, 2017. Students who complete only the first three years (and clear the minimum CGPA the institute sets) can exit with just the BBA. Both are residential campuses, so hostel and mess costs are typically bundled into the programme fee rather than billed separately.

IPMAT Exam Eligibility

Eligibility conditions are revised in each institute’s own notification every cycle — always cross-check the exact passing year and marks conversion rules (for CGPA-format marksheets) against the current IIM Indore and IIM Rohtak brochures before applying.

IPMAT Exam Pattern

This is where the two exams genuinely diverge — not just in section names, but in how time and negative marking are handled.

IPMAT Indore

Each section carries a strict, non-negotiable 40-minute sectional time cap — you cannot move ahead early or go back once a section closes, so all 120 minutes are pre-allocated across the three sections in a fixed sequence. Verbal Ability alone accounts for exactly half the paper, and the Short Answer section is the one genuinely safe place to attempt aggressively, since a wrong SA response costs nothing.

IPMAT Rohtak

All 120 questions are MCQs — there’s no Short Answer cushion here. Rohtak also doesn’t enforce a hard per-section timer the way Indore does; the 120 minutes are yours to allocate across the three equally-weighted sections, though moving between sections freely still means every wrong guess costs the same flat penalty everywhere.

IPMAT Exam Syllabus

The two syllabi overlap heavily on QA and VA, which is exactly why most serious aspirants prepare for both exams together rather than picking one — Rohtak’s Logical Reasoning section is the only genuinely separate skill block to add on top.

Application & Fees

Both institutes run their applications independently and on their own timelines, typically opening in February and closing by March or early April, with the exam itself held in the first half of May. Application fees are modest relative to the programme cost — IPMAT Rohtak has charged close to ₹4,900-5,000 across categories in recent cycles, while IPMAT Indore’s fee has generally run in the ₹2,000-2,500 range for General/OBC and roughly half that for SC/ST/PwD candidates. Treat these as indicative; each institute confirms the exact figure only in that year’s information bulletin.

IPM Selection Process

Clearing the exam gets you nowhere near admission at either institute — it only earns a Personal Interview call. What happens after that is where Indore and Rohtak genuinely part ways.

IIM Indore

IIM Indore converts your raw exam score into a normalised Aptitude Test Score (ATS), calculated as (your score ÷ maximum score) × 100, so scores across different difficulty sections can be compared fairly. Your final composite score is then built from just two components: the ATS carries 65% weightage, and the Personal Interview carries the remaining 35%. There’s no separate academics component in the final formula — Class 10/12 marks matter only for eligibility, not for ranking. Sectional cutoffs apply on top of the overall cutoff, and all four thresholds (three sections plus overall) must be cleared before you’re even considered for the PI shortlist — in the 2026 cycle, only 838 of 17,916 candidates who scored positively made that cut.

IIM Rohtak

IIM Rohtak spreads the weightage across four components instead of two: the IPMAT score itself carries 55%, Class 10 marks carry 10%, Class 12 marks carry 20%, and the Personal Interview carries the remaining 15%. This means your board-exam record does real, quantified work in the Rohtak formula — a strong academic record can meaningfully offset a mid-table exam score in a way it simply cannot at Indore, where boards don’t enter the ranking calculation at all.

Weightages are set fresh in each institute’s admission brochure every cycle. Verify the current split directly with IIM Indore and IIM Rohtak before treating any specific percentage as fixed.

IPMAT Exam Cutoff

Neither institute publishes a cutoff in advance — both move with that year’s difficulty level and applicant pool. For IIM Indore’s 2026 cycle, the General-category sectional cutoffs came in at roughly 28 out of 120 in QA (Short Answer), 27 out of 120 in QA (MCQ), and 111 out of 180 in Verbal Ability, and a total raw score comfortably above 230 out of 360 has typically been considered a safe zone for a PI call. For IIM Rohtak, the 2025 General-category cutoff for PI shortlisting sat around 381 out of 480, with 370+ treated as a reasonably safe target and 400+ as high-confidence.

Institute Fees

At both institutes, the first three years are charged at a fixed IPM-specific rate, while Years 4 and 5 follow the prevailing flagship MBA fee at the time — which is revised periodically — so the total for any given entering batch will differ somewhat from these figures by the time that batch graduates. Both figures typically include hostel and mess, since both programmes are fully residential. Need-based financial assistance and merit-cum-means scholarships are available at both institutes for eligible students after admission.

IPM Placements

IPM students at both institutes enter Year 5 placements alongside the flagship PGP/PGPM cohort, so the numbers below are combined-batch figures rather than an IPM-only breakout — the same proxy approach used for any young or blended IPM cohort.

IIM Indore’s IPM programme is the older and more established of the two — it launched in 2011, versus Rohtak’s more recent IPM cohort — and that maturity shows up in both the placement numbers and the NIRF ranking gap. Consulting and finance together account for roughly half of Indore’s offers; Rohtak’s recruiter base leans more toward sales & marketing, product/IT/operations, and HR.

IIM Indore vs IIM Rohtak: Which Should You Pick?

On brand strength, NIRF rank, and placement ceiling, IIM Indore is ahead by a clear margin — but it’s also the tougher call to crack, with a selection formula that gives your boards zero direct weightage, so everything rides on the exam and the interview. IIM Rohtak offers more seats, a real cushion for students with a strong academic record, and a fee that’s marginally lower. Neither is the objectively “better” choice for everyone; it depends on whether your board marks are an asset or a footnote, and how much weight you put on brand pull at placement time.

How IPMAT Differs From JIPMAT

If you’re applying broadly across every IPM option, it helps to know these aren’t variations of one exam — they’re run by entirely different bodies.

Since the core QA/VA syllabus overlaps heavily across all three exams, most serious IPM aspirants prepare for IPMAT Indore, IPMAT Rohtak, and JIPMAT together — the marginal extra prep for each additional exam is small next to having three separate shots at an IIM seat. If IIM Jammu or IIM Bodh Gaya are also on your list, see our detailed JIPMAT exam guide for the full pattern, selection weightage, and fee breakdown at both institutes.

IPMAT Exam: Preparation Strategy

Admission Timeline

Both institutes typically open applications in February, with the registration window closing across March and early April. The written exams are held in the first half of May — IIM Indore has run its IPMAT in the first week of May in recent cycles, IIM Rohtak in the second week. Results and PI shortlists follow within three to five weeks, Personal Interviews run through June, and final merit lists are typically released by early-to-mid July. Exact dates shift every cycle — confirm against each institute’s own official notification rather than treating this as fixed.

Frequently Asked Questions