Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering
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Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is an annual exam for admission to Graduate programs (Masters level and the Doctorate) in most engineering institutes as well as pharmacy institutes[1] in India and is conducted by either the Indian Institute of Science(IISc) or one of seven Indian Institutes of Technology in rotation. The GATE examination is coordinated by a committee, comprising of IISc and seven Indian Institutes of Technology on behalf of the National Coordinating Board - GATE, Department of Education, Government of India. The pattern and syllabus are usually based on a candidate's background.
Minimum eligibility for appearing in this exam is usually good progress (typically students in their final semster) towards a Bachelor's degree in Engineering (4 year University Degree, similar to the US system) or a Master's degree in Science (3 (Bachelor's) + 2 (Masters, eg. M.Sc.), similar to the British system). The exam is usually conducted on the second Sunday of February.
Changes in Recent Years
- From 2009 onwards, the IT and CS papers have been merged and there will be no separate IT paper.
- From 2010, Pharmacology is no longer on the GATE list, with GPAT as the replacement [2].
Applying to various institutes
GATE scores are only for application to graduate programs in Engineering disciplines in India. Usually IISc application dates are within 4–5 days of announcement of results. Most institutes do not specify their cut-offs for previous years. So there is a general confusion in terms of selecting institutes and specializations. But in the recent years IIT Kharagpur and Guwahati have been specifying last year cut-off mark list. Typically the Indian Institute of Science is the most selective, very closely followed by the IITs. In general IISc and the IITs only admit students scoring among the top 3 percentile on the GATE, to their post graduate programs.