IIM Lucknow Admission 2024: First IIM to Announce Admission Policy: CAT to Get 30% Weight in Final Selection; Check Key USPs, Fee, Placements, Selection Process

Leaving behind the top three IIMs, the CAT 2023 Convening IIM Lucknow has emerged as the first IIM to announce its Admission Policy 2024. IIML has announced CAT 2023 score cut off between 85 and 90 percentile and will award 30% weight to CAT exam score in its final selection process for admission to flagship PGP 2024-26 batch.

Announcing its Admission Policy 2024 for MBA, MBA-ABM and MBA-SM programs, IIM Lucknow has kept the CAT 2023 exam score weightage at 60% in shortlisting, but has kept it just half at 30% in final selection process for admission 2024. The overall and sectional CAT cut off for General and reserved category in first stage shortlisting of the candidates for PI-WAT round is also not kept high.  

This article shares all the important details of selection criteria 2024 for admission 2024 to the double crowned and highly ranked IIM Lucknow MBA programs - MBA; MBA-ABM and MBA-SM 2024-26 batch.

Register for CAT 2023: No Need to Separately Apply for IIM Lucknow MBA Admission
IIM Lucknow admission application has opened with the start of CAT 2023 registration process from August 2, 2023 and the process is simple as below:

• Simply Register & Apply for CAT 2023 and click at the IIM Lucknow programs and your choice of interview cities in the CAT 2023 application form
• No separate application needs to be submitted nor any fee is to be paid.

Read below IIM Lucknow MBA admission criteria 2024, key USPs of IIM Lucknow, cut offs, programs offered, Fees, Placements and more

Table of Contents

1. IIM Lucknow Admission 2024: Key Changes
2. IIM Lucknow: Key Highlights and USPs
3. IIM Lucknow International Partner Institutions
4. IIM Lucknow MBA Programs Offered
5. IIM Lucknow Fees 
6. IIM Lucknow Intake
7. IIM Lucknow Placements 2023
8. IIM Lucknow Eligibility criteria 2024
9. IIM Lucknow Admission Application Process 2024: How to Apply?
10. IIM Lucknow Admission 2024-26: Important Dates
11. IIM Lucknow Cut off
12. IIM Lucknow Admission Criteria 2024: Exam Accepted, Final selection Process
13. IIM Lucknow Admission 2024: Step by Step Process
14. IIM Lucknow PGP Changed to MBA Degree Granting Program

1. IIM Lucknow MBA Admission 2024: Key Criteria
Following are the key points in IIM Lucknow shortlisting and final selection criteria for admission to PGP(MBA), PGP(MBA)-ABM and PGP(MBA)-SM 2024-26 batch

• 1.1  Shortlisting Weight: 60% for CAT 2023 score in Shortlisting 2024
• 1.2  Section Cut Off: The minimum sectional CAT 2023 percentile required is 85 for PGP and 80 for PGP-ABM & PGP-SM
• 1.3  Overall CAT Cut Off: Overall CAT 2023 percentile required is 90 for PGP and 85 for PGP-ABM & PGP-SM
• 1.4  PI-WAT Weightage: PI-WAT round carries 50% weight in final admission 2024
• 1.5  CAT Weight in Final Section: 30% for CAT 2023 score in final selection for PGP & PGP-SM, and 35% for PGP-ABM
• 1.6  Work Experience: Minimum 24 Months Work Experience as Eligibility for PGP-SM 2024 Admission

2. IIM Lucknow: Key Highlights and USPs
IIM Lucknow is a highly ranked management institute in India. It has lower fee than other top 4-5 IIMs and has high placement record at par with all the top IIMs and other top B-schools. Some of the key highlights of IIM Lucknow are shared below

• 2.1 Highly Ranked: Ranked 6^th in the Ministry of HRD NIRF Ranking 2023 among top 125 Management Institutes in India and is ranked #7 in MBAUniverse.com B-School Ranking 2023.
• 2.2 Double Crowned International Accreditation: IIM Lucknow has earned two international accreditations. The latest earned Accreditation is from AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) while it was already accredited by AMBA (The Association of MBAs). The accreditation has been accorded to its PGP, IPMX and WMP programs without any conditions attached to the accreditation.
• 2.3 Lowest Fee among Top IIMs: Two years programme fee for the flagship PGP programme of IIM Lucknow is Rs.20.75 lakhs. The fee is much lower than the fee of Rs.24.61 lakhs charged by IIM Ahmedabad; Rs.24.70 lakhs charged by IIM Bangalore; Rs.27 lakhs charged by IIM Calcutta
• 2.4 High Placements: IIM Lucknow has a consistent 100% placement record with high salary packages. In placement 2023 for 2021-23 batch, average salary has gone up at Rs.32.20 LPA from Rs.31.03 LPA in 2022 and the Highest International Salary has gone up at Rs.65 LPA from Rs.61.59 LPA while Highest Domestic salary stood at Rs.55 LPA
• 2.5 Top Recruiters: Some of the top recruiters in Placement 2023 included Aditya Birla Group, Accenture, BCG, Deloitte, EY, Kearney, KPMG, McKinsey, Microsoft, PwC, ITC, HUL
• 2.6 International Exchange: IIM Lucknow International Exchange Programme initiative is a process through which its students can do a part of their studies in 35+ Business Schools located all around the world. At the same time, foreign students and teachers come to IIM Lucknow to understand the working and mindset of one of the potentially largest markets in the world.
• 2.7 Institute with 2 Campuses: IIM Lucknow has two campuses – its main campus is at Lucknow where it offers PGP and PGP-ABM programmes and another campus is at Noida in Delhi NCR where it offers PGP-SM, Executive Management Programs for working professionals and important faculty development programs also

3. IIM Lucknow International Partner Institutions
IIM Lucknow has partnered with many reputed international institutions across the world for student exchange, research, faculty exchange programmes. These institutes abroad are located in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and in other countries. 

Some of the prominent international partner institutes of IIM Lucknow include McMaster University-Michael G Degroote School of Business, Canada; Kelley School of Business, USA; University of North Texas College of Business, USA; University of Akron, USA; Brock University, Canada; ESSEC Business School, France; NEOMA Business School, France; Turku School of Economics, Finland; ESCP-EAP, European School of Management, France; Bocconi University, Italy; University of St. Gallen, Switzerland; University of Hull, United Kingdom; Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece; Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium; Beijing Jiaotong University, China; National University of Singapore, Singapore; Singapore Management University, Singapore; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Lincoln University, New Zealand among others

4. IIM Lucknow MBA Programmes
IIM Lucknow offers following three 2 years full time MBA programmes:

• 2 Years Full Time Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP)        
• 2 Years Full Time Post Graduate Programme in Agribusiness Management (PGP-ABM)
• 2 Years Full Time Postgraduate Programme in Sustainable management (PGP-SM)

4.1 IIM Lucknow PGP: Specializations
In the second year of the Post Graduate Programme in Management, IIM Lucknow offers choice of Specializations in the areas of Marketing, Finance & Accounts, Strategic Management, Human Resource Management, IT & Systems, Business Environment, Communication, Operations Management, Decision Sciences, General Management

4.2 IIM Lucknow PGP: Elective Work Shops
IIM Lucknow PGP students have the opportunity to choose and participate in two workshops in their sixth semester. The students can register for two elective workshops from the list below:

Sports Marketing – Marketing Area; Qualitative Market Research–Marketing Area; Framing Identity and Role through Exploration – HR area; Business of Entertainment – General Management; Capstone Business Simulation – General Management; Risk Management – Finance area; Personal Finance and Retail Banking – Finance area; Behavioral Finance – Finance Area

5. IIM Lucknow Fees: Rs.20.75 Lakhs

• The total programme fees payable by PGP students at IIM Lucknow is Rs 20,75,000/-
• Laptop computer, personal expenses on boarding, travel, clothes and laundry are extra.
• The programme fees for the PGP 2024-2026 batch is likely to be revised

6. IIM Lucknow: Intake
IIM Lucknow seats are 495 for PGP programmes including PGP, PGP-ABM and PGP-SM

7. IIM Lucknow Placements 2023
IIM Lucknow concluded final placement 2023 breaking previous record and achieving again 100% placement for the 37th PGP batch 2021-23 and 18^th PGP-ABM batch 2021-23. The large batch of students witnessed the participation from domestic and international recruiters. IIM Lucknow has broken its own record in achieving new heights in salary packages.  IIM Lucknow largest ever 37^th PGP and PGP-ABM 2021-23 batch of 556 students has registered highest ever average salary which has gone up at Rs.32.20 LPA in 2023 from Rs.31.03 LPA last year and has broken its own record in achieving new heights in average salary. 200 recruiters participated in IIM Lucknow placement 2023 and made 632 offers.  

  7.1 IIM Lucknow Placement 2023: Key Highlights

• Average Salary has gone up at Rs.32.20 LPA in placement 2023 from Rs.31.03 LPA last year
• Highest domestic salary has gone down at Rs.55 LPA from Rs.58 LPA last year
• Highest International Salary in Placement 2023 has gone up at Rs.65 LPA from Rs.61.59 LPA last year
• Batch of 556 students got 632 placement offers by 200 marquee recruiters
• Consulting Companies Accenture, Deloitte, BCG, PwC, McKinsey emerged as top recruiters with 122 offers
• Top recruiters included Aditya Birla Group, Accenture, BCG, Deloitte, EY, Kearney, KPMG, McKinsey, Microsoft, PwC, ITC, HUL, among others.
• This is the 4^th Placement year for which IIM Lucknow has released its Placement statistics

7.2 IIM Lucknow Placement 2022: Key Highlights

• Placement Process was conducted in Virtual Mode both for Recruiters and Students
• Completed 100% Placements in 2 days
• Average Salary has gone up by 19% at Rs.31.03 LPA in Placement 2022 from Rs.26 LPA last year
• Highest domestic salary has gone up at Rs.58 LPA in Placement 2022 from Rs.51 LPA last year
• Highest International Salary in Placement 2022 has gone up at Rs.61.59 LPA from Rs.56 LPA last year
• Median salary in Placement 2022 has gone up by 23% at Rs.29 LPA from Rs.23.5 LPA last year
• Batch of 491 students got 534 placement offers by 150+ marquee recruiters
• Top Domestic recruiters included Aditya Birla Group, Accenture, Adobe, Bain & Co., Barclays, BCG, Capgemini, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Deloitte, EY, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Kearney, KPMG, McKinsey,Microsoft, PwC, RPG, Xiaomi among others.
• Top International Recruiters included Omnibiz, Landmark, Splash

Read More

8. IIM Lucknow Eligibility criteria 2024

1. IIM Lucknow eligibility criteria require that the candidate must hold a bachelor's degree, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA (in case of the candidate belonging to SC/ST/PwD category, the eligibility criterion is relaxed to 45%
2. The candidate should appear in CAT 2023 exam and must score minimum prescribed sectional and overall score to become eligible for admission
3. If the candidate is awarded grades/CGPA instead of marks in his academics, the equivalence to determine PGP admission eligibility would be based on the equivalence certified by the institution/university from where the bachelor's degree is obtained. In case the institution/university does not have any scheme for converting the CGPA into equivalent marks, the equivalence would be established by IIM Lucknow by dividing the obtained CGPA by the maximum possible CGPA and multiplying the resultant by 100 to confirm the Admission eligibility of the candidate. 
4. A candidate appearing for the final year bachelor's degree/equivalent qualification examination and those who have completed the degree requirements and are awaiting results is also eligible to apply for IIM Lucknow Admission 2024. Such a candidate must produce a certificate from the principal/head of the department/ registrar/director of the institution/university certifying that the candidate is currently in the final year or is awaiting final results and has obtained at least 50% marks or equivalent (45% in case of the candidate belonging to SC/ST/PwD category) based on latest available grades/marks.
5. IIM Lucknow Eligibility further clarifies that such a candidate, if selected, will become ineligible for the IIM Lucknow admission unless he/she submits a certificate latest by June 30, 2024 from the principal/head of the department/registrar/director of the institution/university (issued on or before June 30, 2024) stating that they have completed all the requirements (the result may, however, be awaited) for obtaining the bachelor's degree/equivalent qualification on the date of issue of the certificate.
6. It is mandatory for a final year student, who is provisionally considered eligible by IIM Lucknow and offered admission, to submit the mark-sheet and degree certificate of the final year bachelor's degree examination held on or before June 30, 2024.  The deadline to submit the mark-sheet and the certificate is December 31, 2024. 
7. Candidates seeking admission to PGP-SM programme should have minimum 2 years of work experience after graduation.

9. IIM Lucknow MBA Admission Application Process 2024: How to Apply?

• Application process for admission at IIM Lucknow opens with the start of CAT 2023 registration process from August 2023 first week
• Candidates have to apply for CAT 2023
• IIM Lucknow Last Date to apply is same as the last date for CAT registration
• CAT 2023 Registration Fee includes the IIM Lucknow Application Fees
• In the CAT 2023 application form, you need to select IIM Lucknow PGP and other programs also and select the interview city
• After declaration of CAT 2023 exam result, you can check at IIM Lucknow website whether you are shortlisted by entering your CAT 2023 registration ID and password

9.1 IIM Lucknow Application Fees
There is no separate IIM Lucknow application fees. CAT 2023 registration & Application fee includes the IIM Lucknow application fee as detailed below

10. IIM Lucknow Admission 2024: Important Dates
IIM Lucknow MBA Admission process 2024 has started with the beginning of CAT 2023 registration.  Important dates related to IIM Lucknow MBA Admission 2024 are as below:

11. IIM Lucknow Cut off: Preliminary Screening Process
Preliminary screening to consider Shortlist Eligibility will be done for all the candidates who have opted for IIM Lucknow Admission 2024 through CAT 2023 score. You need to clear the minimum required shortlist Cut off score in CAT exam. IIM Lucknow will consider only those candidates for shortlisting who have scored minimum prescribed cut offs.

IIM Lucknow Cut off for PGP, PGP-ABM, PGP-SM programmes has been liberalised for admission 2024. Only the candidates above the minimum cut-offs in the CAT 2023 sectional percentile ranks, the overall percentile rank and obtaining a positive (greater than zero) raw score in all sections of CAT-2023 will be considered for all the subsequent stages. Following are the program-wise and category-wise IIM Lucknow cut off.  

  11.1 IIM Lucknow Cut Off for PGP 2024-26
The Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) is the flagship programme offered by IIM Lucknow. It is a 2 year, full time residential programme. The PGP cut offs announced by IIM Lucknow to shortlist the candidates for admission 2024 for this programme are:

Source: IIM Lucknow Admission Policy 2024

11.2 IIM Lucknow Cut off for PGP-ABM 2024-26
The 2 year Post Graduate Programme in Agribusiness Management at IIM Lucknow is another important full time residential course designed to develop Agribusiness leaders, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs with vision, competence and appropriate attitude for promoting/growing agribusiness and agro-based enterprises with a strong international orientation. The CAT 2023 score cut offs to shortlist candidates for final selection round 2024, at IIM Lucknow are:

Source: IIM Lucknow Admission Policy 2024

11.3 IIM Lucknow Cut Off for PGP-SM 2024-26
IIM Lucknow’s Postgraduate Programme in Sustainable Management (PGPSM) endevours to produce experts to fill the gap of sustainability issues in industry. PGPSM is a 2 years full time residential programme being offered at Noida campus of IIM Lucknow. The programme is designed to help managers to develop an ethos of environment and social responsibility and equip them with holistic skills to handle varied sustainability challenges. The CAT 2023 score cut offs to shortlist candidates for final selection round 2024, as announced by IIM Lucknow are:

Source: IIM Lucknow Admission Policy 2024

12. IIM Lucknow MBA Admission Criteria 2024: Exam Accepted, Final selection Process
The admission policy 2024 of IIM Lucknow outlines two step selection process for the candidates. In the first step, IIM Lucknow will shortlist the candidates for Writing Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interview (PI) from among the candidates who have a valid CAT-2023 score, who have applied to the programme and who satisfy the eligibility criteria for the programme. The second step is the final selection process on the basis of which admission offer will be made. IIM Lucknow Admission Criteria 2024 for all the three PGP, PGP-SM and PGP-ABM programmes will award 60% weight to CAT 2023 score in short listing for PI-WAT.

Stage-1: IIM Lucknow Shortlisting Criteria
IIM Lucknow will shortlist the candidates on the basis of CAT 2023 score, past academic performance, and other criteria. Key details and weightages applied to each component in IIM Lucknow shortlisting criteria 2024 for PI-WAT round  before final selection round are as below

• The 1^st stage of shortlisting in IIM Lucknow Admission Criteria awards 60% weight to CAT 2023 score, 20% weight to Academics, 10% to Work Experience and 10% to Diversity factor.
• The candidate must have scored minimum sectional percentile of 85 in each of the three sections of CAT 2023 – Quantitative Aptitude' (QA), ‘Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning' (DILR) and ‘Verbal and Reading Comprehension' (VRC)
• A candidate must have scored minimum overall percentile of 90 in CAT 2023
• If the candidate does not score minimum prescribed percentile in CAT 2023, he/she will not be considered for shortlisting for final selection stage.
• The candidate with excellent academics will be awarded higher points in shortlisting criteria
• 98 & Above percentile marks in Class 12 will be awarded top rating of 10 points out of 100. There will be a zero weightage if the candidate has scored less than 80 percentile in class 12.
• Graduation marks will also be awarded a weightage of 10 points by IIM Lucknow after applying the normalization process to different academic streams like Engineering; Science; Commerce; Arts and others.  
• A female candidate will be awarded 5 points out of 100 in the IIM Lucknow shortlisting criteria for final admission round.
• Work Experience will carry a maximum weightage of 10% in the shortlisting criteria of IIM Lucknow for admission 2024. Only paid and full-time work experience of more than 6 months, acquired after completing the Bachelor’s Degree will be counted as on July 31, 2023.
• IIM Lucknow will award a weightage of 5 points for academic diversity. The courses that qualify for the award of weightage on academic diversity are Arts/Humanities, Commerce/ Economics,  Physical Education, Law, Medicine/Dentistry, Pharmacology/Pharmacy among others

IIM Lucknow Shortlisting Criteria 2024: Weightage Parameters

*Maximum marks for diversity factor (DFa and DFb) cannot exceed 20 for PGP-ABM Program only.

Stage-2: Final Admission Selection Round Criteria
Key components in final selection criteria and their respective weightages are shared below:

• All the shortlisted candidates are eligible to participate in Final selection round for admission to IIM Lucknow
• IIM Lucknow selection criteria after final admission round award 40% weight to Personal Interview(PI), 10% weight to Writing Ability Test  (WAT); 30% Weight to CAT 2023 score, 10%  to Academics, 5% to Work Experience and 5% to Diversity factor.
• The minimum requirement for getting a pass in Personal Interviews is 12 out of 40 marks. Names of candidates who do not pass in PI will not be included in the final merit list.

IIM Lucknow Final Selection Criteria weights for Admission 2024
A candidate’s final score for selection in MBA/MBA-ABM/MBA-SM program for the batch 2024–26 will be calculated on the basis of the assigned weights as under:

Note: The minimum requirement for getting a pass in PI is 12 out of 40 marks. Candidates who do not pass in PI will not be included in the final merit list.

13. IIM Lucknow Admission 2024: Step by Step Process
Following 4 steps are included in the IIM Lucknow Admission process 2024:

• Step 1: The candidate must have appeared and scored the minimum required sectional and overall percentile in CAT 2023 to be considered for first stage screening process for admission at IIM Lucknow. Common Admission Test (CAT) 2023 to be held on Nov 26, 2023, is the mandatory exam for IIM Lucknow admission 2024 for PGP 2024-26 batch and for admission to PGP-SM and PGP-ABM programs
• Step 2: Candidates are short-listed for Personal Interview (PI) and Written Ability Test (WAT) from among the candidates who have a valid CAT-2023 score, who have applied to the programme and who satisfy the eligibility criteria for the programme of IIM Lucknow. The Shortlisted candidates must fill in & submit the WAT-PI form online by stipulated deadline else they will not be able to attend the final selection round.
• Step 3: After the WAT & PI round, admission offers are made by IIM Lucknow to successful candidates. The final selection is based on a diverse set of attributes which includes performance in CAT, performance in WAT & PI, academics, co-curricular and extra-curricular achievements, work experience among others
• Step 4: Final Admission Offer will be made to the candidates in the third week of April 2024 on the basis of Final Score arrived after awarding the weightage scores on all the components.

14. IIM Lucknow PGP is Now MBA Degree Granting Program
After implementation of IIM Act by the Government of India, now the IIMs are empowered to award MBA degree instead of post graduate diploma. Accordingly, IIM Lucknow also confers MBA degree to the passing out batch instead of diploma.

Those who are not eligible for admission this year, should wait and apply for IIM Lucknow admission 2025 to pursue MBA. To improve diversity, IIM Lucknow admission policy has remained on same lines and it is expected that the IIM Lucknow admission 2025 process will remain on similar lines as this year. The Indian Institute of Management Lucknow is fourth in the IIM family of management schools and was established in India after IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore. The Institute was established in the year 1984. IIM Lucknow moulds its students into value driven leaders, managers and global players. The institute undertakes a diverse range of academic activities aimed at creation, dissemination and application of management knowledge and practice. In 2005, IIM Lucknow became the first IIM to set up a satellite campus exclusively for Executive Education at NOIDA in Delhi NCR region.

Hope you found this article on IIM Lucknow quite useful to decide on MBA admission 2024. IIM Lucknow admission application process through CAT 2023 is open and the last date is September 13, 2023. Read More

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on IIM Lucknow 

Check IIM Admission 2023 Latest Selection Criteria, Cut Offs, Rankings, Placements

Also Read