Bachelor's degree in any discipline with a minimum of 50% aggregate marks (45% for SC/ST/PwD), plus a valid CAT score meeting the category-wise minimum percentile cutoff, per the official MBA Admissions Policy page (iimsambalpur.ac.in/admission/).

Candidates register for and appear in CAT (conducted by the IIMs on a rotating basis, not by IIM Sambalpur itself); those meeting the category-wise percentile cutoff are shortlisted for a Personal Interview (PI) round; final selection is based on a composite/merit score combining CAT score, academic profile, work experience, gender diversity and PI performance, with weightages that have varied by cohort year, per the official Admissions Policy and third-party aggregators cross-referencing it.