National Institute of Design Design Aptitude Test(NID DAT)

About the exam

About NID DAT

The NID DAT exam is the Design Aptitude Test that the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad runs in two stages, and for the 2027-28 intake the first stage only decides who is called back. NID's two Admissions Handbooks for 2027-28, published on 10 September 2026, say the Prelims score is used to shortlist for DAT Mains and carries no weightage beyond that. A Class 12 student counting on a four-year B.Des at Ahmedabad will not find one in them: the undergraduate handbook lists NID Ahmedabad's programme as a five-and-a-half-year Master of Design (Integrated Pathway), and names the four-year B.Des only among the options at NID Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. Applications for that cycle close at 11:59 pm on 30 November 2026, and the Prelims is set for Sunday, 20 December 2026.

NID Ahmedabad runs admission for its own undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programmes and, as the 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 puts it, for the undergraduate programmes of the four other NIDs set up by DPIIT: NID Haryana, NID Andhra Pradesh, NID Assam and NID Madhya Pradesh.

The 2027-28 cycle is split across two handbooks. The NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. covers undergraduate entry: at NID Ahmedabad, with its Gandhinagar and Bengaluru campuses, that is a five-and-a-half-year Professional Education Master of Design (Integrated Pathway) and not a B.Des, and at the four other NIDs a 5.5 year integrated M.Des or a 4 year B.Des. For the 2025-26 intake, the 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 still listed the undergraduate seats at Ahmedabad as B.Des seats, separately from those at the four other NIDs. The NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28 covers the two-and-a-half-year M.Des at Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Bengaluru; M.Des places at NID Madhya Pradesh and NID Haryana take a separate application and a Mains that each of those institutes conducts.

Two rules shape every application. The Prelims is common to all NIDs, and you must choose one level: both handbooks say a candidate cannot apply for undergraduate entry and the M.Des together, because the two entrance examinations run at the same time on the same day.

At a glance

NID DAT highlights

Calendar

Important dates

Both 2027-28 handbooks carry the same application and Prelims dates, then part ways on results and certificate windows.

NID reserves the right to change this schedule, and the handbooks say any change will be highlighted only on admissions.nid.edu. The undergraduate handbook also schedules a separate online application for admission, filed after the Mains result, and leaves its dates to be announced.

NID's annual reports show that the 2024-25 and 2025-26 cycles were also announced in September, though the Prelims month moved. The 63rd NID Annual Report 2023-24 records that admissions for 2024-25 were announced in September 2023 and the Prelims was held on December 24, 2023. The 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 records that admissions for 2025-26 were announced in September 2024 and the Prelims was held on 05 January 2025.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Every applicant has to clear an age limit and an education bar, and the limit moves with category.

Undergraduate Entry (Integrated Pathway and B.Des.)

The age rule is a date of birth on or after the date below, and the handbook states that these rules are common to every NID in the process.

On education, the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. opens entry to candidates who have passed, or will appear for, Class 12 in any stream (Science, Arts, Commerce, Humanities) from a recognised board. A candidate still to sit Class 12 must have appeared before document verification, must pass in the first attempt and must submit the marksheet by 15 July 2027; a backlog, compartment or supplementary paper cancels the admission and forfeits the fees. The handbook contradicts itself on the qualifying year: section 5.1 names it once as 2026-27 and in the next paragraph as 2027-28, while the note at section 5.3 and the list of counselling documents both say 2026-27.

The handbook accepts these as equivalent to Class 12:

• the final 10+2 examination of a Central or State Board recognised by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU)
• an intermediate or two-year pre-university examination recognised by the AIU
• the final examination of the two-year course of the Joint Services Wing of the National Defence Academy
• the NIOS Senior Secondary examination with at least five subjects
• a school, board or university examination in India or abroad that the AIU recognises as equivalent to 10+2
• the H.S.C. vocational examination
• GCE Advanced level taken in London, Cambridge or Sri Lanka
• an AICTE-approved three-year full-time diploma after Class 10 from a state or UT Board of Technical Education
• any other or foreign board, with an equivalence certificate from the AIU or the Ministry of Education

An EWS or OBC-NCL candidate whose certificate fails verification is treated as General, unless they used age relaxation, in which case the candidature is cancelled. Only foreign citizens may apply in the Overseas category: OCI and PIO card holders must apply there, and NRIs holding an Indian passport must apply as Indian nationals.

M.Des.

The M.Des handbook writes its eligibility rules for NID Ahmedabad and its Gandhinagar and Bengaluru campuses, with one age table for most disciplines and an older one for M.Des in Design Education.

For most disciplines the bar is a bachelor's degree or its equivalent in any discipline. Design Education asks for a master's degree in Design, or a bachelor's degree in Design followed by a master's in any discipline. Neither eligibility section names a four-year diploma. Beyond the degree itself, both accept its equivalent or an equivalent qualification recognised by the Ministry of Education, and the word diploma appears only in the list of documents shortlisted candidates upload. A degree from outside India needs an AIU or Ministry of Education equivalence certificate.

Final-year students in 2026-27 can apply if they sit every paper of the qualifying examination, with no pending backlog, by 28 June 2027, pass it in the first attempt and hand in the final result by 31 July 2027, according to the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28. They also submit undertakings signed by themselves, their parents and their college at counselling.

Step by step

Application process and fee

You apply only at admissions.nid.edu, and the NID admissions portal states that nid.edu is NID's only official website and that sites referring to NID with ".org" or "org.in" are fake.

Both handbooks lay out the online form as four steps:

1. Sign up by choosing the programme, nationality and category. An OTP goes to your email and mobile, and the name, programme, date of birth, email and mobile can never be changed afterwards.
2. Fill the application form.
3. Upload a studio colour photograph and a signature, each a JPG of 50 KB to 200 KB, plus any category, disability or third-gender document as a PDF of up to 1 MB.
4. Pay the fee. The application counts as complete only once you can view, download or print the auto-generated form.

Keep that email and mobile active until 31 August 2027, as the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28 asks. EWS and OBC-NCL certificates must be in the Central format, in the candidate's own name, issued on or after 01 April 2026 on 2025-26 income. The undergraduate handbook accepts card or net banking; the M.Des handbook lists debit and credit cards only.

The handbooks make the fee non-refundable and non-transferable, and leave bank transaction or convenience charges to the candidate. The undergraduate fee covers all NIDs; the M.Des fee applies only to disciplines at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Gandhinagar; NID Madhya Pradesh and NID Haryana take M.Des applications through a separate link. The third-gender rate needs a certificate of identity under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019 or an identity card from transgender.dosje.gov.in.

The 2025-26 fee table in the 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 looks different: it shows no separate rate for women, Rs 1,500 for PwD candidates, Rs 5,000 for overseas applicants, and Rs 6,000 for a General, General-EWS or OBC-NCL candidate applying to two M.Des disciplines.

The edit window lets you change anything except the programme, name, date of birth, mobile and email. It is also the only time you can change the test centre. Moving to a category with a higher fee means paying the difference, and moving to a cheaper one earns no refund.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

The handbooks schedule the Prelims admit card for download on admissions.nid.edu from 4 pm on 10 December 2026, and the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. is plain that no copy is sent: you download and print your own. The reporting time, the handbooks say, will be printed on the admit card.

On the day, the Prelims is a paper-and-pencil or pen test held at the same time at every centre, in English only, with questions that may use text and visuals. NID does not arrange accommodation for either stage.

Hold on to the admit card afterwards. A request to re-total your Prelims marks is not processed without a scanned copy signed by the invigilator and stamped with the centre's seal, and a request for your answer sheet needs the same attested card.

NID allows 20 minutes of compensatory time for every hour of the test to candidates with a disability as defined under the RPwD Act 2016, as the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28 sets out. The handbooks leave scribe arrangements to a separate, later announcement, but say the subjective part of the Prelims and the Mains must be attempted without a scribe.

Structure

Exam pattern

The 2027-28 handbooks fix the stage structure and the shortlisting rule; the marks and their weightages are not in them.

What the NID DAT Handbooks Leave Out

Neither handbook gives the number of questions, the marks, a section split or a duration; each says the duration of the test will be announced in the admit card. Neither describes an objective or OMR-marked section either: the only part of the Prelims the handbooks name is its subjective part, the one a scribe may not write. The In-Person Sensitivity Test is named only in the undergraduate handbook; for Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Gandhinagar disciplines the M.Des Mains is a Studio Test, held group-wise except in Group X, and a separate interview for each discipline. Missing either part of the Mains removes you from the merit list at both levels. Both handbooks say NID may run any test online, offline or in a mix of the two if circumstances require.

M.Des disciplines at NID Madhya Pradesh and NID Haryana have a Mains of their own, and the M.Des handbook says its schedule, venue and format will be communicated separately on those institutes' websites or the admissions website. For undergraduate entry, each NID uses the DAT Mains score for its own seats, and if seats stay vacant the handbook allows independent NIDs to hold an additional Mains for their own campuses.

NID's FAQ for the admissions cycle 2022-23 said a portfolio was required for the M.Des during the interviews at DAT Mains. The NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28 does not mention a portfolio at all, neither repeating that requirement nor withdrawing it.

What to study

Syllabus

Both 2027-28 handbooks describe what the tests measure in one sentence: the Design Aptitude Tests aim "to assess the knowledge, skills and behavioural abilities of candidates". Beyond it, the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. and its M.Des counterpart say only that Prelims questions may involve text and visuals and that the paper is in English only. They set out no topics for either stage, so a DAT topic list covering drawing, reasoning or material awareness comes from somewhere other than NID's 2027-28 handbooks. The undergraduate handbook names the two parts of the Mains but says the details regarding DAT Mains will be announced later.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

The NID admissions portal addresses preparation directly: "NID does not encourage an aspiring student to attend any coaching class by way of preparation for the NID admission test. NID has not authorized/franchised with anyone to conduct such classes." Neither 2027-28 handbook lists books or practice material, and NID does not release its DAT question booklets even on request.

Where it is held

Exam centres

The 2027-28 Prelims is scheduled in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Dehradun, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jorhat, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi and Patna, per the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des.. A city may have more than one centre, and NID can add or drop a centre or allot one you did not choose.

The 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 records the 2025-26 Prelims at 49 test centres across 22 cities. Guwahati, Kurukshetra, Raipur, Ranchi, Thiruvananthapuram and Vijayawada were on that list and are missing from the 2027-28 list in the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des., which adds Jorhat.

Neither handbook names a Mains venue. The undergraduate handbook says the Mains test centre will be given on the Mains admit card, and M.Des candidates for Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Gandhinagar disciplines sit a Mains conducted by NID Ahmedabad.

After the exam

Answer key

The DAT's question booklet doubles as its answer key, and NID withholds both. The two 2027-28 handbooks, including the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des., state that "The question booklet cum Answer key of the DAT exams will not be available even upon request", calling the booklet highly subjective in nature.

What you can ask for is a re-totalling of your Prelims marks, online only, for Rs 2,000 (per discipline at M.Des level), according to the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28. It checks only whether every answer was marked and whether the marks were added and carried to the cover page correctly; there is no re-evaluation or inspection of the script, and the revised score is final.

Your answer sheet can be requested only after the admissions process closes, within six months of the final result, for Rs 1,000 per exam, and the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. says it is sent within 15 to 20 days of payment.

Scores

Result and scorecard

Results appear only on admissions.nid.edu, as category-wise merit lists (per discipline at M.Des level) with a separate list for overseas candidates. The scorecard stays downloadable for 20 days from each result, and the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. warns that no separate scorecard is sent and NID is not responsible once it is gone.

Ties are broken by a tie-break policy that the handbooks do not set out and say will be announced later. Scores from the 2027-28 cycle are valid only for admission in 2027-28, and no person or institution may use a DAT score without NID Ahmedabad's prior permission. NID also says it will not share the break-up of marks or any other candidate's data.

For the 2025-26 cycle, the 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 records the B.Des Prelims result on 01 April 2025 and the M.Des Prelims result on 17 February 2025.

Scores you need

Cutoff

The 2027-28 handbooks cut the Prelims merit list to a multiple of the seats. For undergraduate entry the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. calls 2.5 times the available seats in each category to the Mains, and for M.Des at NID Ahmedabad the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28 calls 4.5 times the available seats in each category for each discipline, both in merit order. Neither handbook gives the Prelims score at which either list closed, for this cycle or an earlier one, and the "minimum qualifying criteria" named in both sets of de-reservation rules are not defined anywhere in them.

NID's own annual report shows how crowded the 2025-26 Prelims was. The 64th NID Annual Report 2024-25 says 15,451 candidates appeared in the B.Des Prelims for seats at NID Ahmedabad and the four other NIDs, and 1,904 were shortlisted for B.Des Mains. At M.Des level, the same report says 6,200 candidates appeared for 402 seats and 1,358 were shortlisted for the Mains.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

NID allots seats itself, online or in person at its discretion, and both handbooks say the in-person counselling procedure will be posted on the admissions website before seat allocation begins.

Undergraduate Entry

A Mains rank does not put you into allotment by itself. After the Mains result you must file a second online application for admission, and missing that deadline makes you ineligible for a seat at every NID. Seats then go by merit, category availability and your stated preference. A candidate who used compensatory time, a scribe or age relaxation is allotted only in the category applied for.

Reserved-category candidates are considered for OPEN seats as well as their own category, and PwD candidates also for the matching PwD seats. Unfilled OBC-NCL seats pass to the Open category; vacant GEN-EWS, SC, ST and overseas seats do not move.

At in-person counselling, the NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. asks for originals and copies of a photo ID, proof of date of birth, the Class 10 and 12 marksheets, a first-attempt certificate for current Class 12 students, an undertaking if the result is pending, and any category, disability, passport or third-gender document. Absence, invalid documents or unpaid fees cancel the candidature.

M.Des.

Allotment follows merit and the discipline preferences entered in the application, which cannot be changed later. If you applied for two or three disciplines and land your second or third choice in Round 1, you move up by default when a higher-preference seat falls vacant in a later round, and your earlier seat is released.

Shortlisted M.Des candidates upload their documents as a single PDF of no more than 10 MB, per the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28, adding the graduation transcript, degree or provisional certificate and migration certificate to the school documents.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

Undergraduate entry at NID Ahmedabad for 2027-28 is the Integrated Pathway, not a B.Des: eleven semesters across 15 disciplines under five streams, each discipline taking 9 students. The NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. reserves 1 GEN-EWS, 2 OBC-NCL, 1 SC and 1 ST seat in each 9-seat discipline, and adds 15 overseas supernumerary seats, one per discipline.

NID Andhra Pradesh, NID Assam, NID Haryana and NID Madhya Pradesh admit through the same test, and the handbook sends candidates to each institute's own website for disciplines and seats. The NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. records NID Assam's current intake as 75 students a year.

At M.Des level, NID Ahmedabad lists 19 seats in most disciplines and 12 in Ceramic and Glass Design and in Toy and Game Design, according to the NID M.Des. Admissions Handbook 2027-28.

You may pick one discipline from any group, two from the same group (Group X excepted), one from Groups 1 to 5 plus one from Group X, or two from one of Groups 1 to 5 plus one from Group X. M.Des places at NID Madhya Pradesh and NID Haryana need a separate application, one for each NID.

Get help

Contact

The NID Admissions Cell is at the National Institute of Design, Paldi, Ahmedabad 380 007, email admissions@nid.edu. The NID Admissions Handbook 2027-28 for the Integrated Pathway and B.Des. gives 079-26623462 for 2027-28 queries, Monday to Friday from 11.00 am to 12.30 pm and 3.00 pm to 5.30 pm, and nid@applyadmission.net for technical problems with the online form.

The same handbook lists the other campuses' admission contacts:

• NID Andhra Pradesh: academics@nid.ac.in, +91 (863) 2377230
• NID Assam: dinamani@nidj.ac.in, 9101098102
• NID Haryana: admission@nidh.ac.in, 01744-278103 and 01744-278102
• NID Madhya Pradesh: admissions@nidmp.ac.in, 0755-6721000 (extensions 1115 and 1112), mobile 8305103032 and 8305103030

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact exam dates, deadlines, fees, prelims/mains marks, weightage splits, cutoffs, answer keys and results vary every 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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