Does IISc Bangalore select students with a low CGPA and average GATE marks?

In IISc Bangalore, for certain programs, only the GATE scores are taken into consideration. For example- M.Tech (course) in CSA and SSA streams.

In the above-mentioned programs, you have to secure the top 50-100 rank in the GATE CS examination.

For M.Tech in some streams, and M.Tech (Research) and Ph.D. programs, IISc Bangalore uses the GATE score simply as a cutoff. The selection is done based on the written test and subsequent interview. The GATE cutoff for an interview call is relatively low. This is done with the idea that a good student who had a bad exam can still perform extremely well during the interview. For M.Tech/ Ph.D.  CS, this rank is equal to the top 500-1000 ranks(for those who apply), but it can go to 200 for other streams.

Your GATE scores and GPA during graduation become mostly irrelevant once you get called by IISc Bangalore for an interview. They can only work to make the interviewer biased toward/against you, this won’t happen unless you have significantly high or low scores respectively. What matters for your selection is if you can impress the interviewers with your knowledge of the topic(s) that you want to study/research.

Thus, if you go for a course at IISc Bangalore which makes selections through a written test and an interview, make sure to study your topic well and answer the interviewers with confidence.