Symbiosis Entrance Test – Undergraduate(SET)

About the exam

About SET

A SET score on its own admits nobody to Symbiosis. Symbiosis International (Deemed University) runs the Symbiosis Entrance Test as a one hour computer based paper, then hands the result to each of its undergraduate institutes, which charge their own fee, run their own interview and publish their own cut off. Understanding where the university's job stops and the institute's begins is the difference between a paid registration and a wasted one.

SET is the common entrance test for undergraduate admission to most Symbiosis institutes, and it is one of two undergraduate papers the university sets. SIU's SET and SITEEE 2026 overview records that the general paper has been called the Symbiosis Entrance Test since 2018, and the engineering paper the SIT Engineering Entrance Exam, or SITEEE, since the same year. Both are computer based, both run on the same two days, and a candidate sits them in different slots.

Clearing SET puts a candidate in front of an institute, and no further. SIU's admissions overview states that a candidate needs to register for SET or SITEEE and also register with the institutes offering the chosen programmes by paying separate programme registration fees, and then attend the further admission process each of those institutes conducts individually.

The seat at the end is a four year degree built to the National Education Policy 2020, and the overview page sets out its exit points: a certificate after the first year at 44 credits, a diploma after two years at 84 credits, a degree after three years at 120 credits, and a degree with honours or research after four years at 160 credits, with re entry allowed within three years of exit.

At a glance

SET highlights

Calendar

Important dates

The test cycle SIU currently documents is SET and SITEEE 2026, and its calendar has run its course. The SET and SITEEE 2026 important dates page fixes it as follows.

Those are SET slots; the registration guide puts SITEEE at 11.30 am to 12.30 pm on the same two days. The same page adds the date the calendar above leaves out: the 2026 result stayed available on the site up to June 19, 2026.

For the shape of a future cycle, the closest thing to a published pattern comes from the institutes rather than the test secretariat. Symbiosis School of Economics states that its admission procedure for undergraduate and postgraduate study starts registration every year from December to April, followed by SET for undergraduates and then the personal interaction. The Undergraduate Studies 2026 to 2027 prospectus that set-test.org links from the top of every page puts a date on the front of that window: in the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts timetable, SET application forms for the 2026 cycle opened on Thursday 12 December 2025, four months before the window closed.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

What SIU sets is a school-leaving mark, not a percentile. The SET and SITEEE 2026 eligibility page runs institute by institute down a long table, and copies its academic row unchanged into almost every one of them: a pass in Standard XII or an equivalent examination from any recognised Board, at 50% marks or the equivalent grade, dropping to 45% where the candidate is Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. Where a degree carries an honours with research track, the page attaches a condition that only bites long after admission, a 7.5 CGPA at the end of Semester 6.

Engineering is the exception, and it divides in two. For the artificial intelligence, computer science and electronics degrees at the SIT campuses, the same table wants 10+2 with Physics and Mathematics compulsory plus one subject from a listed group; for civil, mechanical and the two robotics degrees it wants Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics together. Either route needs at least 45% across those subjects taken together, 40% for a reserved category candidate, and either can be replaced by a pass in the D.Voc. stream in the same or allied sector.

Individual institutes add routes of their own. The eligibility page lets Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts accept an International Baccalaureate certificate or diploma with a minimum of 24 credits and at least three subjects at Higher Level and three at Standard Level, and it accepts GCE, IGCSE or GCSE applicants with five or four subjects at grades A, B or C including English at Ordinary Level plus two or three at Advanced Level. For the off campus centre at Nagpur, the SIU reservation policy for SET reserves 25% of the sanctioned intake in each Nagpur programme for candidates domiciled in Nagpur Urban for five years who are also either graduating from Nagpur University or holding Class 10 and Class 12 certificates from the Maharashtra Board, CISCE, CBSE or ICSE.

One condition a candidate might expect is simply absent: the word age does not appear on the eligibility page or in either bulletin, so nothing in SIU's published criteria turns on how old a SET candidate is.

Step by step

Application process and fee

Registering is one form; applying is two payments. The registration guide runs the candidate through the form, an OTP sent to the declared mobile number and email, and a SET or SITEEE ID issued for every later communication, then sets out the money.

SIU marks both payments non refundable and non transferable, and the programme one is where candidates come unstuck. The registration guide states plainly that payment of only the test registration fee will not make a candidate eligible for shortlisting or merit listing in any programme, whatever the score, and that failure to pay the programme fee means the application is not considered for that programme.

Either fee could also be paid on paper, and paper ran to a shorter deadline than it looked. The instrument is ordinary enough, a nationalised bank's draft in favour of Symbiosis Test Secretariat, payable at Pune. What caught candidates out is that it had to travel with a printed payment advice form and be physically at Lavale by 3:00 pm on April 15, 2026, that anything later went back unbanked, and that the admit card stayed invisible until the money had cleared. The same page warns that no change is permitted after registration under any circumstances, so an error in the form is permanent.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

A SET admit card is still needed weeks after the test itself is over. The SET and SITEEE 2026 admit card page requires a colour printout, refuses black and white, asks for a passport size colour photograph no more than six months old pasted on it, and pairs it with an original photo identity from a closed list: passport, driving licence, voter ID, PAN card, Aadhaar or college ID, and it will not take that identity in soft copy.

At the centre an authorised person authenticates the card against the photo ID, and that authenticated card is what a candidate needs later for the personal interaction rounds. The page states that a duplicate authenticated admit card will not be issued, and that it should be retained until the admission process is over.

The rest of the day is tightly drawn. Reporting is two hours before the test, entry closes once the test starts, nobody leaves the hall before the end and nobody re enters after submitting, and cell phones, calculators, smartwatches and similar wearables are barred. A digital fingerprint or photograph scan is captured, which is why the page advises against applying mehndi or colour to the palms for five days beforehand. Sections may be attempted in any order.

Structure

Exam pattern

The whole paper is 60 questions against a 60 minute clock, divided by the test structure page like this.

The same page states that the test is conducted in computer based mode, that its duration is 60 minutes, that there is no negative marking for wrong answers, and that all sections are mandatory. For every SET section it prints, the questions column and the marks column carry the same figure.

SITEEE is the same length and a different animal. The structure page gives it 15 questions in Physics for 30 marks, 15 in Chemistry for 30, and 30 in Mathematics for 60, so its 60 questions are worth 120 marks against SET's 60.

Two test dates do not buy two attempts each. A candidate may sit up to two tests in total across SET and SITEEE, and the registration guide takes the higher score where more than one is sat. What the higher score is taken towards is where SIU's own paperwork parts company. The guide says it counts for the admission process, and so does the SET Bulletin 2026 the site links from the top of every page. The SET Bulletin 2026 in the Quick Links block lower down the home page, a separate file with its own contents, says it counts for the final percentile calculation. A third wrinkle is internal to the guide: one line of it rules normalization out, and a later line in the same paragraph brings it back for the difficulty of the papers. None of this is reconciled anywhere on the site, so a second sitting is a decision taken against a moving target.

What to study

Syllabus

A candidate preparing for SET has four labels and no contents page. The test structure page puts no topic under General English, Quantitative, General Awareness or Analytical and Logical Reasoning and names no indicative reading, and the two SET Bulletin 2026 PDFs add nothing to it, neither of them using the word syllabus at all.

In place of topics, two notes sit under the table. One keeps the paper itself provisional: in unavoidable circumstances SIU may alter the schedule and the nature or structure of the test, and may run it entirely online, entirely offline or in both modes at once. The other disposes of a bad question without the candidate present, a Scrutiny Committee taking the decision after the test and that decision being final.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

With no syllabus to work from, the published rules are what a candidate can actually plan against: 60 questions in 60 minutes, no negative marking, every section compulsory, any section attempted in any order, and no calculator in the hall, all of which the test structure page and the admit card page set out.

One correction is worth making before anyone builds a plan from SIU's own blog. Its study plan article for SET 2026, stamped as updated on March 18, 2026, describes the paper as testing English, Quantitative Aptitude and Analytical and Logical Reasoning. That is three of the four sections the structure table lists, and the omitted one, General Awareness, carries 16 of the 60 questions.

SIU adds time for a candidate with a disability and leaves the scribe to the candidate. The SIU guidance for persons with disabilities grants 20 minutes of compensatory time for every 60 minutes of test, and states that SIU will not provide a scribe: the candidate arranges one, the scribe's education must not go beyond the 9th standard, and the request had to reach the secretariat by April 15, 2026.

Where it is held

Exam centres

The test cities page lists 68 test cities across India for SET and SITEEE 2026, from Port Blair and Gangtok to Kozhikode and Jodhpur, and it attaches a warning most candidates read too late: cities and dates are allotted first come, first served, so paying early is what secures a preference.

Once the test registration fee is paid, the page states, no request for a change of test date or test city will be entertained. Centre capacity is limited, SIU reserves the right to allot a city other than the one requested, and it reserves the right to add, delete or change cities without prior intimation.

After the exam

Answer key

A SET candidate never sees the marked paper. On the SET and SITEEE 2026 pages that govern the test itself, its structure, its important dates and its admit card and test day rules, and in both bulletins the site links, the phrases answer key, response sheet and objection do not occur once, and no window is set aside in which a candidate could raise one.

What stands in their place runs inside the university, with the candidate outside it. A question found to be wrong reaches the Scrutiny Committee, which sits after the test and whose decision ends the matter. The score is sealed just as firmly on the admit card page, which puts what SIU publishes beyond appeal and beyond revaluation.

Scores

Result and scorecard

The SET and SITEEE 2026 result was announced on May 20, 2026 and, per the registration guide, stayed on the site for a month, to June 19, 2026. A scorecard exists only where a candidate actually sat the paper; a registered absentee gets none. The admit card page then treats the printout of that scorecard, rather than the screen, as the official result, bars a candidate who cannot produce it from an institute's selection process, and asks for it to be kept until the programme is finished.

Ranks arrive later and only where money has moved. The test structure page states that programme wise ranks appear in the candidate login portal after the final date for programme registration and fee payment, and only for the programmes a candidate has both registered for and paid.

A candidate who sits the test and then defers a year starts over, because the registration guide confines a SET or SITEEE 2026 score to SIU admissions for the academic year 2026 to 2027.

Scores you need

Cutoff

Ask what score gets a candidate into Symbiosis and the honest reply is that there are as many answers as there are programmes. The SET and SITEEE 2026 overview works the shortlisting cut off out separately for each programme, which is why one score can put the same candidate on more than one shortlist and oblige a separate personal interaction for each of them. Each institute posts its own category wise numbers, for its merit list and for its wait list, on its own website, and a wait list only moves as far as the vacant seats let it.

The arithmetic those cut offs are applied to, though, is identical everywhere. The overview's merit list table converts the entrance test's 60 marks to 70, adds 30 for the personal interaction and totals 100, and it shows the same 70 and 30 against every SET institute in the table. Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies, Pune states the same split on its own admission page in the Undergraduate Studies 2026 to 2027 prospectus.

Engineering is scored differently again: for the SIT campuses, the overview says the branch is allocated on SITEEE percentile, branch preferences and availability of seats.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

What follows the result is not a round but a set of them, one per institute, and SIU describes only the range they are allowed to take. The SET and SITEEE 2026 overview lets an institute assemble its personal interaction from any or all of a Writing Ability Test, a Group Discussion, a Studio Test and a Personal Interview, and weigh previous academic performance, relevant work experience, gender and academic diversity into the outcome as it sees fit. The disclaimer beneath that list leaves no room: attending every component is mandatory, and missing one makes a candidate ineligible for the merit, wait and reject lists alike.

The institute calendars diverge sharply, and they do not all wait for the result. In the Undergraduate Studies 2026 to 2027 prospectus that the SET site links beside its bulletin, Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies, Pune closed its own registration and payment on May 18, 2026, declared its shortlist on May 25, ran interviews from June 01 to June 13, published a first merit list on June 18 and began the programme on July 31, with the caution that these dates are tentative. Its programme payment therefore fell two days before the important dates page had the university announce the result. The same prospectus puts the Bengaluru centre's own closing date on the day of Test 01, before the second test date had even been sat.

Fees paid once a seat is accepted, unlike the two registration fees, can come back, and they come back on a calendar rather than a sliding scale. The same prospectus sets the university's refund rules against the UGC policy of 12 June 2024 and holds them in force for the academic year 2026 to 2027: an admission cancelled up to 30 September is refunded in full with no deduction, one cancelled between 01 October and 31 October is refunded less Rs 1,000 in processing charges, and one cancelled from 01 November onwards is not refunded at all. The 2018 UGC slabs the prospectus also reprints, running from a full refund down through 90, 80 and 50% to nothing by reference to the notified last date of admission, apply to an admission schedule that starts or continues past 31 October, not to the ordinary case.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

The official SET site invites candidates to choose from 16 institutes across its undergraduate programmes, and that count spans both papers. Thirteen of them carry a row in the overview page's SET merit list table, between them covering management, media, economics, computer studies, statistics, liberal arts, sports sciences, artificial intelligence and culinary studies; the remaining three are the Symbiosis Institute of Technology campuses that admit through SITEEE. Between them the sixteen sit in five cities, Pune, Noida, Nagpur, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The overview page also lists the institutes for which neither paper is mandatory, among them Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences, Symbiosis College of Nursing, the two design institutes and Symbiosis School of Visual Arts and Photography. One name sits on both lists: the culinary school's Bachelor of Business Administration goes through SET while its Bachelor of Science does not. The overview marks the three engineering campuses with a footnote of their own, recording that they also admit through JEE (Main) or any State Government Engineering Entrance Examination; a candidate arriving that way, says the registration guide, need not register for SITEEE and applies through the institute's own website instead.

Seat counts live in the prospectus rather than on the test site, and not completely. The Undergraduate Studies 2026 to 2027 prospectus gives an intake per programme rather than per institute, and prints no figure at all against SIT Nagpur's B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering or SIT Hyderabad's B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning), so a candidate counting seats at either has to ask the campus.

One institute splits its seats away from the test entirely. The Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts admissions page states that its 2027 undergraduate admissions run on two pathways, SET and a non SET Rolling Admission Process, that the two follow independent timelines, and that seats are earmarked separately and evenly divided between them. Its rolling process opened on August 24, 2026 and closes on December 13, 2026, judged on a statement of purpose, a recommendation letter, Class 10 and Class 11 marks and an online interaction.

Get help

Contact

One office answers for SET, and the SET contact page sorts its lines by the kind of trouble. General queries go to info@set-test.org, or to 9071013499 and 020 61936226/27, or by post to the Symbiosis Test Secretariat, Gram Lavale, Tal Mulshi, District Pune 412115. A portal that will not load or a payment that will not go through belongs in a different queue, on 7200495273 or 9962027165.

The registration guide adds two things worth knowing before a problem becomes a dispute. Inside the portal, a query has to be raised as a ticket through Raise A Query for it to be resolved at all, and all official mail comes only from info@set-test.org or no-reply@set-test.org, so those addresses should be whitelisted. Where the secretariat and a candidate cannot agree, the guide names an order of appeal and a venue: an email to registrar@siu.edu.in comes first, the University's Ombudsman hears whatever the Registrar leaves unsettled, and anything past that belongs to the courts at Pune.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact dates, list/count of accepting institutes, cutoffs, fees, and results are per-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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