If you sat CAT this year hoping for a seat at an IIM, here's the complete picture — when the result actually came out, how the process unfolded, and what "rounds" really mean once your score is in hand.
What CAT Actually Is
The Common Admission Test (CAT) is a national-level, computer-based entrance exam for admission to MBA and PGDM management programs, most notably at India's Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) (Sarvgyan; CTET.co.in). It's conducted once a year, entirely online, with the organizing IIM rotating each cycle — this year's edition places the organizing responsibility with an IIM (sources here point to both IIM Kozhikode and IIM Ahmedabad in different years' materials, reflecting the exam's rotating host structure) (Sarvgyan; CTET.co.in). The exam itself runs three hours (CTET.co.in).
The Full 2025-26 Cycle Timeline
The CAT 2026 cycle followed a long, structured runway. The notification released on July 27, 2025, with the application form opening August 1, 2025, at 10 AM (NTAExam; Sarvgyan). Registration closed September 13, 2025, at 5 PM, with an application correction window running October 4-7, 2025 (NTAExam). Admit cards became available between November 12 and November 30, 2025, and the exam itself was held on November 30, 2025 (NTAExam; Sarvgyan).
After the exam, the answer key was released December 4, 2025, with a window to submit objections against it running December 8-10, 2025 (NTAExam). Once objections were reviewed and a final answer key locked in, the result was announced on December 24, 2025 (NTAExam; Sarvgyan) — just over three weeks after the actual exam day.
How Result Day and the Scorecard Actually Work
The sequencing here matters: the official result only gets released after the final answer key is prepared, meaning any objections raised during that window can still shift the outcome before results go out (NTAExam; Sarvgyan). Once released, the CAT scorecard comes bundled with your result and includes your percentile-based cutoff information alongside your score (NTAExam; Sarvgyan).
Clearing Up a Common Misunderstanding: "Rounds" After the Result
Here's a genuinely important point of confusion worth resolving directly: CAT's result itself is a single, unified release — there's no such thing as multiple "rounds" of the CAT result the way some other entrance exams stagger their outcomes (AskFilo). What people often call "rounds" after CAT actually refers to something different: the separate admission processes each individual B-school runs on its own, after your CAT result and percentile are already finalized (AskFilo). In other words, your CAT score doesn't come out in stages — but what different IIMs and B-schools then do with that single score (shortlisting, group discussions, personal interviews, final selection) absolutely does happen across multiple stages, and those stages vary school by school.
What This Means for Your Own Timeline
If you're waiting on a CAT cycle, the practical takeaway is to separate two things clearly in your head: the CAT result itself (one release date, based on historical pattern typically landing in late December, following roughly three to four weeks after the exam) and the individual B-school admission process (which starts only after that single result is out, and unfolds over its own separate, often lengthier, multi-stage timeline unique to each institute) (AskFilo). Don't expect a second or third "CAT result" to arrive — once you have your score and percentile, that number is what you carry into every individual B-school's own process from that point forward.