MICA Admission Test(MICAT)

About the exam

About MICAT

MICAT is one exam name covering four different papers. MICA writes a separate MICAT for each of its two schools, and inside the School of Management the Fellow Programme paper carries an aptitude section of two sub-sections where the PGDM paper carries four (MICA PGP programme details, MICA FPM programme details). One attempt commits a candidate to one school, so the paper is chosen at application and not on test day (MICA admissions 2026).

MICAT is the entrance test MICA runs for its own seats, and it is common to every programme across both schools: the School of Management, which houses PGDM-C, PGDM and the Fellow Programme in Management, and the School of Applied Creativity, which houses the CCC and CCE certificate programmes, listed on MICA's current admissions page under their newer names, PGCM-AMC and PGCM-DMMC (MICA admissions 2026).

What MICAT actually gates depends on which school a candidate is aiming at. For PGDM-C and PGDM it is the middle filter of three, because a CAT, XAT or GMAT score is mandatory alongside it (MICA PGP programme details). For the Fellow Programme and for the CCC and CCE programmes there is no CAT, XAT or GMAT requirement at all, so MICAT is the only written test standing between the application and the interview stage (MICA FPM programme details, MICA CCE programme details).

The two windows are not alternatives a candidate has to choose between, and what writing both buys depends on how they are used. Aimed at the same school, the better of the two scores is the one carried forward; aimed one at each school, they cover ground a single attempt cannot, because the paper is set per school (MICA CCC programme details, MICA admissions 2026).

At a glance

MICAT highlights

Calendar

Important dates

The 2026 cycle has finished. MICA's key dates block for that intake now reads that admissions for the 2026 intake are closed, and puts the final results on or before April 15, 2026 (MICA admissions 2026).

Here is how the cycle ran, as MICA published it for the 2026-28 batch.

One thing on MICA's site does not fit that schedule, and it is worth knowing what it is before reading it as an opening. A floating enquiry button, which sits on the admissions page and on the homepage alike, reads that MICAT III (Online) registration is open for FPM, PGC-CCC and PGC-CCE, with an online exam date of 5th March (MICA admissions 2026). It names no year. MICAT III appears nowhere in the key dates block on the same page, which states that the 2026 intake is closed, and nowhere in any of the four programme documents published for that intake. It is standing site furniture rather than a dated announcement, and it is not evidence that a window is open.

For the cycle after this one, MICA's site still shows the 2026 intake as its current admissions page, so the December and February pattern is the shape to plan against rather than a set of announced dates (MICA).

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

MICAT is not a test with one eligibility bar. Each programme sets its own, and they differ on the degree, on the marks, and on whether another entrance score is needed.

PGDM-C and PGDM. A bachelor's degree on the 10 + 2 + 3 system, or an equivalent qualification in any discipline recognised by the Association of Indian Universities, with at least 50% marks or equivalent CGPA from a recognised university (MICA PGP programme details). Final year candidates and those who have finished the degree requirements and are waiting for results may apply, on condition that they produce a certificate from the principal, director, registrar or head of department confirming the position, submitted by June 30, 2026 for that intake; such a candidate joins provisionally, and the admission is confirmed only on submission of the final mark sheet and passing certificate, due by December 31, 2026, with non-fulfilment cancelling the provisional admission automatically (MICA PGP programme details).

On top of the degree, these two programmes require an entrance score MICA does not conduct. Every candidate must have taken at least one of CAT, XAT or GMAT, and for the 2026 intake the accepted vintages were CAT 2025, XAT 2026 and GMAT from 2024 onwards, with the score details to be updated on MICA's site on or before January 29, 2026; XAT candidates give only their registration number, and MICA collects the score from XLRI (MICA PGP programme details).

Fellow Programme in Management. A different and higher bar. It asks for a UGC, AIU or AICTE approved postgraduate or master's degree, or an equivalent qualification, with at least 60% marks, that is First Class, or an equivalent grade, in management, communications, humanities or social science; the candidate must also have completed a UGC, AIU or AICTE approved three year bachelor's degree after higher secondary, and that degree may be from any discipline. Foreign nationals and NRIs holding non-Indian degrees treated as equivalent by those bodies are eligible to apply with GRE (MICA FPM programme details).

CCC and CCE. The School of Applied Creativity programmes, the two-year CCC-Advanced, the eleven-month PGC-CCC, and CCE, ask for the same degree and the same 50% floor as the PGDM route, with the same final year certificate and the same two deadlines, and explicitly do not require CAT, XAT or GMAT; MICAT is compulsory instead (MICA CCE programme details, MICA CCC-Advanced eligibility and selection process).

Two conversion rules decide whether a candidate clears the marks bar at all. Grades and CGPA must be expressed as a percentage, and where the institution publishes no conversion factor the CGPA is multiplied by 10; for class 10 and class 12, MICA takes the aggregate of all subjects on the mark sheet rather than a best-of subset. A degree earned overseas has to be recognised by AIU or another appropriate authority, and an integrated master's or dual degree taken directly after class 12 is counted at the percentage its own institution treats as equivalent to a bachelor's (MICA PGP programme details).

Step by step

Application process and fee

One fee covers the application and the test together, and it does not change by category.

The additional-programme rate has a ceiling and a condition attached. A candidate may apply to up to three programmes, but all of them must sit in the same school: either PGDM-C, PGDM and the Fellow Programme, or the School of Applied Creativity set (MICA PGP programme details). That restriction exists because the paper itself is different. MICA states plainly that the MICAT paper is unique to each school, and that in a single MICAT attempt a candidate can apply to programmes from one school only, not both. Applying to both schools is still possible, through separate MICAT attempts or by using one attempt for one school and the other attempt for the other (MICA admissions 2026).

No reserved-category fee, no waiver and no concession appears anywhere in the four programme documents MICA published for the 2026 intake, or on its admissions page. The same figure applies to every applicant (MICA admissions 2026).

MICA publishes its own troubleshooting list for a failed application or payment, which is unusual enough to be worth knowing before the deadline: create a new account using the same email ID and phone number, try a different device, verify the payment method has sufficient funds or credit, clear the browser cache or switch browsers, and finish the application on a laptop or desktop rather than a mobile (MICA admissions 2026).

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

MICA publishes no admit-card instructions for MICAT. Neither the admissions page nor any of the four programme documents for the 2026 intake says when the card is released or what a candidate has to carry alongside it to the centre (MICA admissions 2026, MICA PGP programme details). What it does set out for the sitting is two things, and both are worth reading before the morning of the test.

A demo exam link is released two days before the test so candidates can see the computer based interface, the question navigation and the overall flow before the real sitting (MICA admissions 2026).

The second reaches past the scheduled slot. If anything goes wrong during the examination, the decision of MICA's Admissions Committee on holding a re-examination, the same day or otherwise, is final and binding, and candidates are told to stay available for a re-examination until 6:00 pm on the scheduled MICAT date (MICA PGP programme details). MICA also reserves the right to change, withdraw or introduce MICAT centres and event dates, and to move the process between online and offline, with final centre allocation subject to availability.

Structure

Exam pattern

MICAT is a computer based test, and the section list is not the same in every version of it.

Section A behaves unlike the rest of the paper. It is a qualifier, it has no right or wrong answer and no negative marking, and MICA warns that every question in it must be answered for the test paper to be evaluated at all (MICAT sample questions). A candidate who leaves the psychometric section part-finished is not losing marks on a section; the rest of the paper stops counting.

The Creative Aptitude and Potential section carries the same instruction in a different form. MICA introduces it as a creativity test with no right or wrong answers, where each question has four options and the candidate picks the one that feels most interesting and relevant (MICA CCE programme details).

What MICA does not publish in these documents is a question count or a total mark for any section, so any single figure for either is not coming from the institute's own 2026 papers.

What to study

Syllabus

The clearest picture of what MICAT asks comes from MICA's own sample questions, which the institute releases per school and labels as questions for reference that are not indicative of the actual paper (MICAT sample questions).

The Descriptive section is built on argument, not on essay writing in general. A sample item states a proposition, asks for five arguments in support, then five arguments against, then the candidate's own view in about 200 words written as a response to a request from a newspaper editor, with an explicit warning that one side must be taken and no marks are given for expressing views on both. A second item gives four pictures labelled A to D and asks for a picture sequence and a story of roughly 300 words that uses all of them (MICAT sample questions).

Divergent and Convergent Thinking is the sub-section with no obvious school equivalent. One published form gives four clues and five alternatives, and only one alternative connects to all four clues; the others are statement-and-assumption and two-statement-two-conclusion items, which test whether a conclusion follows rather than whether it sounds reasonable (MICAT sample questions).

Verbal Ability runs to sentence completion with paired blanks, four-sentence para-jumbles, and phrase replacement questions that carry a No Correction Required option. Quantitative Ability and Data Interpretation covers ages, set overlaps, weighted averages and counting arrangements. General Awareness in the sample paper reaches into military history, business newspapers and brand campaigns, so it is broader than current affairs of the last few months (MICAT sample questions).

How to prepare

Preparation and books

MICA's own answer to how to prepare for MICAT names two resources, both of them its own: the sample papers on the admissions page, one set per school, and a demo exam link released two days before the test so a candidate can work through the interface first (MICA admissions 2026). Each of the four programme documents then closes with a MICAT mock link of its own, and the four addresses are different, so a CCE applicant and a Fellow Programme applicant do not rehearse on the same paper (MICA CCC programme details, MICA FPM programme details).

One instruction in that material is procedural rather than academic: answer every psychometric question, because MICA conditions evaluation of the whole paper on it (MICAT sample questions).

Fellow Programme candidates have a second reading load that MICAT itself does not test. Those shortlisted after the screening interview are emailed prescribed readings, mostly from the marketing, media and communication domains, and the FPM Written Test is descriptive, based on those readings, and open book, so copies may be carried in (MICA FPM programme details).

Where it is held

Exam centres

MICA runs MICAT at over 48 test centres across the country, and names the cities: Ahmedabad, Aizawl, Ajmer, Aligarh, Allahabad, Bareilly, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Delhi, Dhanbad, Faridabad, Gandhinagar, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Gwalior, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Jammu, Kanpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Meerut, Navi Mumbai, Mumbai, Muzaffarnagar, Nagpur, Noida, Panjim, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Rajkot, Ranchi, Surat, Trivandrum, Udaipur, Vadodara, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam (MICA PGP programme details).

The interview stage shrinks that map hard. Group Exercise and Personal Interview rounds are held at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata or Mumbai, so a candidate who writes the test in a home city may still have to travel for the round that decides the seat (MICA PGP programme details). Final centre allocation is subject to availability, and MICA reserves the right to change, withdraw or introduce test and interview centres.

After the exam

Answer key

MICA does not publish a MICAT answer key. In the 2026 admissions page and the four programme documents the chain ends at the scorecard date: sample questions and a per-school mock before the test, a scorecard after it, and no stage at which the questions themselves come back into a candidate's hands (MICA admissions 2026, MICA PGP programme details).

That fits how the papers are built. Of everything MICAT sets, only the aptitude sub-sections have a single correct option to key at all: the psychometric test is set with no right or wrong answer, the descriptive test is written prose, and the Creative Aptitude and Potential section is introduced the same way, as a creativity test with no right or wrong answers (MICAT sample questions, MICA CCE programme details). The psychometric section is in any case one MICA says it does not share, as a matter of standard practice (MICAT sample questions).

Scores

Result and scorecard

Each window has its own scorecard date, and MICA publishes both at the start of the cycle rather than announcing them later. For the 2026 intake the MICAT I scorecard went live on December 24, 2025 and the MICAT II scorecard on February 28, 2026 (MICA PGP programme details).

Two scorecards do not mean two competing claims. Where both attempts point at the same school, only the better of the two is carried into evaluation, so a weaker second sitting does not displace a stronger first (MICA CCE programme details).

The scorecard is not the result of the admission. For the School of Management the final merit list is declared at the end of the second week of April, after the interview stage, and offer letters go to the candidates who feature in it (MICA PGP programme details).

Scores you need

Cutoff

Three separate cut-offs stand between an application and a Group Exercise call, and MICA attaches a published figure to none of them.

The sequence for PGDM-C and PGDM runs in a fixed order. Section A is checked first as a qualifier. Those who clear it have their CAT, XAT or GMAT performance considered against a minimum cut-off on the total percentile or the GMAT score, with the best of the three taken. Those who clear that have Section C assessed, on both percentile and raw scores, sub-section by sub-section, against a minimum cut-off; and only those who clear Section C have Section B evaluated, which also carries a sectional cut-off on percentile and raw scores (MICA PGP programme details).

Section C scores are normalised before any of that is applied. MICA states that scores are normalised using appropriate statistical methods across all qualifying candidates up to the stage a candidate has reached, and that a score in an individual sub-section of MICAT I or MICAT II, Verbal Ability for instance, is converted into a normalised score (MICA PGP programme details). A raw mark from one window is therefore not directly comparable with a raw mark from the other.

One cut-off difference is stated rather than left to inference. Because PGDM places greater emphasis on analytics, MICA says the Quantitative Abilities and Data Interpretation cut-offs may be higher for PGDM candidates than for PGDM-C candidates sitting the same paper (MICA PGP programme details).

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

Everything that happens after MICAT is run by MICA itself. No external authority allots a seat at any point, and the route a candidate walks was fixed by the school they named at application.

For PGDM-C and PGDM, candidates who clear the three filters are called to a Group Exercise and Personal Interview in March, and a candidate must be recommended by a majority of the interview panellists to reach the final merit list at all (MICA PGP programme details). MICAT contributes 25% of the final composite score for this route.

The School of Applied Creativity routes weight the test far more lightly against what follows it. For the CCC programmes, candidates shortlisted on MICAT are emailed a Creative Electronic Subjective Test, which tests creative thinking, articulation and problem solving and must be answered within 48 hours; for the 2026 intake it was set for 18 or 19 February, 2026, with personal interviews in March 2026, and the final selection weighted MICAT at 25%, CEST at 25% and the interview at 50% (MICA CCC programme details). CCE replaces the CEST with a portfolio presentation at the interview and splits its selection the same way, MICAT 25%, portfolio 25% and interview 50%, with its final selection dated April 25, 2026 (MICA CCE programme details).

The Fellow Programme route is longer again: an online screening interview for those shortlisted on MICAT, then an open book FPM Written Test, an individual presentation on the submitted research proposal, and a personal interview, with the screening interviews dated March 5 and 6, 2026 and the written test, presentation and interview on March 24 and 25, 2026 (MICA FPM programme details).

Accepting an offer closes the other doors. A candidate merit-listed for more than one programme must accept only one by the deadline in the offer letter, and accepting it is treated as voluntarily giving up the place in the other merit lists; the programme choice cannot be changed once confirmed, and an offer not accepted by the stated date removes the name from the merit list automatically (MICA PGP programme details).

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

MICAT is MICA's own test and MICA's alone. The score feeds the programmes of its two schools: PGDM-C, PGDM and the Fellow Programme in Management under the School of Management, and CCC-Advanced, CCC-One Year and CCE under the School of Applied Creativity (MICA PGP programme details).

The reverse also holds, and it is worth stating because the CAT requirement invites the opposite assumption. MICA uses CAT, XAT and GMAT scores inside its own selection process for PGDM and PGDM-C, and says in the same document that the IIMs, XLRI and GMAC have no role in that selection process (MICA PGP programme details). A strong CAT percentile opens the MICA gate only through MICA's own weighting, and a MICAT score opens nothing anywhere else.

Get help

Contact

MICA takes admission queries at admissions@micamail.in and marketing@micamail.in, and runs two helpline numbers, 99251 11751 and 90991 27399, available between 10:00 AM and 06:00 PM (MICA admissions 2026). The campus address is Shela, Ahmedabad-380058, Gujarat (MICA).

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact exam dates, sectional question counts, total marks, cutoffs, admit-card and result dates are per-cycle. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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