I have mediocre academics is it realistic to crack IIM Ahmedabad based on CAT score and interviews alone?

IIM Ahmedabad is popularly known for being an academic institution that has a core focus on the overall capacity and diversity of students, as opposed to only focusing on academic scores.

• The approach that the institution follows is to bring out the student’s best capabilities and promote them to be successful in it. For instance, you will find students who may not have the best score academically (six-seven pointers) but are immensely good at extra-curricular activities. This can range from anywhere between national level dramatics or multiple sports credentials.
• If you have a mediocre academic performance then you can definitely make it to IIMA. However, it is essential that you excel in something else. Academic scores must be compensated with something better to prove your skillset.

This answer was based on the fact that you have an additional skill that you are great at to make up for academic scores.

But, if you are someone who does not have that extra skillset and has low academic scores, it is almost impossible to get into IIMA even with a score of 100 percentile at times.

• There have been students who have performed incredibly well in their class 10th and 12h with a score of 90% and 99% percentile respectively. They received calls from IIM Kolkata only. The reason being their background was in Engineering.
• Coming from such a competitive background, there will always be a number of students who have better scores than you. This becomes imperative to have perfect academic scores from class 10 till your graduation, which proves that you will most likely be an academically bright student at IIMA as well.

Given your academic background, it will be highly challenging to get into IIMA for the reasons given above.