Symbiosis Law Admission Test(SLAT)

About the exam

About SLAT

Sixty minutes of multiple choice settle 70 of the 100 marks that decide a seat at a Symbiosis Law School, and the other 30 are awarded in a Personal Interaction that each of the four schools runs on its own calendar, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin. Ahead of all of that sits a second fee, and the bulletin is blunt about going without it: payment of only the entrance test registration fee will not make a candidate eligible for shortlisting in any programme, regardless of the SLAT score. One of the four schools also publishes a seat count its own university prospectus contradicts.

Only Symbiosis reads a SLAT score, and only for its five-year integrated law degrees. The bulletin lists the programmes it is mandatory for: B.A. LL.B. (Honours), B.B.A. LL.B. (Honours) and B.Com. LL.B. (Honours) at Symbiosis Law School, Pune, and B.A. LL.B. and B.B.A. LL.B. at the NOIDA, Hyderabad and Nagpur schools, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin. The B.Com. route is Pune's alone, and the Honours suffix goes no further than Pune either.

Registration happens twice on one portal. A candidate registers for the test and pays for it, then goes back into the same form to select institutes and programmes and pay for each of those separately, per the SLAT registration process page. Nothing SIU does centrally reaches past that point: once the result is out, the institute offering each programme runs its own admission process and publishes its own schedule for it.

A score does not carry forward. The bulletin puts it flatly: "SLAT 2027 Score will be valid only for admission to selected programmes of Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU) for the academic year 2027-28."

At a glance

SLAT highlights

Calendar

Important dates

SIU has dated the 2027 cycle end to end, and the law schools' own windows run wider than the test's: SLS NOIDA takes registration and payment from August 21, 2026 to January 14, 2027, closing well after the SLAT registration window itself shuts, per the SLS NOIDA page on the SLAT site.

Two things the schedule does not settle. Test timings are not published in advance at all; the bulletin says they will be communicated to candidates through their admit cards. And the result is not left up indefinitely, with the bulletin setting it for January 12, 2027 and its availability up till February 12, 2027.

Every law school then stacks its own deadlines on top of those, and the four sets do not line up.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

One academic condition covers every school and every programme: passed Standard XII (10+2) or equivalent from any recognized Board with a minimum of 45% marks or equivalent grade, and 40% marks or equivalent grade for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, as the SLAT eligibility criteria page sets it out. The bulletin's programme eligibility table repeats that condition for each school and adds no age limit and no subject requirement.

On candidates still waiting for a Class 12 result, the central pages say nothing and the schools say plenty. SLS Pune allows students who have appeared for the Standard XII final examination and are awaiting results to apply, subject to submission of a passing certificate at the time of final admission, per the SLS Pune five-year admission process. SLS NOIDA words the same permission around a notified date on its SLS NOIDA admission procedure page.

SLS Hyderabad then adds two bars that appear nowhere in the bulletin. Its Admission 2027 page requires the qualifying marks "in one attempt only (No Compartment / Supplementary)", and bars applicants who obtained 10+2 through an Open University system directly without any basic qualification from the professional law courses, according to the SLS Hyderabad Admission 2027 procedure. Neither bar appears in the bulletin's eligibility table, so a candidate reading only the central pages would never see them.

Overseas Citizen of India, Person of Indian Origin and foreign national candidates are exempted from SLAT altogether and apply through the Symbiosis Centre for International Education, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin. The NRI position is where the bulletin argues with itself: one page says Indian nationals and NRI candidates shall have to apply under SLAT 2027 to seek admission, and a later page says that for an NRI applying under the International category, the entrance exam is not mandatory.

Step by step

Application process and fee

Neither payment is recoverable: the bulletin marks the test fee and the programme registration fee alike as non-refundable and non-transferable, and puts government taxes over and above both.

The second row is the one that ends applications. Failure to pay the programme registration fee results in the application not being considered for that programme, and the bulletin adds that no communication will be entertained in this regard. A candidate who sits both test dates and applies to three programmes is paying for two tests and three programme registrations.

The two deadlines are not the same deadline. Even after payment for SLAT 2027 closes, the bulletin lets a candidate go on paying through the website till the last date of payment for that programme, and it is the institute's own page that prints that date.

SIU allots test dates and test cities in the order the fees arrive, and neither can be swapped once the test registration fee is paid. What a candidate does get to state is a ranked list: up to three preferred test cities, in order, for each test selected, per the SLAT registration process page.

There is still a paper route. A demand draft of Rs 2,550 per test from any nationalized bank, drawn in favour of "Symbiosis Test Secretariat" and payable at Pune, must physically reach the Secretariat by 3:00 pm on December 04, 2026, and the bulletin says a draft arriving later will be returned rather than processed. The admit card only becomes viewable after the payment is realised. Online, the gateways are Billdesk and Easebuzz.

A candidate who needs a writer arranges one personally: SIU provides no scribe, caps the writer's own education at the 9th standard, and wants the request at info@slat-test.org on or before December 04, 2026, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin.

After submission nothing can be corrected. The bulletin states that no changes shall be permitted after the registration under any circumstances.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

Admit cards go live on the SLAT website on December 11, 2026 for SLAT 01 and December 18, 2026 for SLAT 02, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin. Black and white printouts will not be accepted, and a colour passport-size photograph no more than 6 months old has to be pasted on the card before the test, per the SLAT admit card and test day instructions.

The document matters after the test as much as on the day. An invigilator authenticates the admit card against the original photo identity proof, and the bulletin warns that a candidate cannot appear for SIU's further admission processes without that authenticated card and that a duplicate will not be issued. Six identity documents are accepted, namely passport, driving licence, voter ID card, PAN card, Aadhaar card and college ID card, and each has to arrive in original because the bulletin will not take a soft copy of any of them.

Reporting is two hours before the test begins, for security procedures and verification of the admit card and ID proof, and nobody is allowed into the test centre premises once the test has started, per the SLAT important dates and test guidelines page. The bulletin closes the room at the other end as well: no candidate may leave the hall before the test is complete, and none may re-enter it after submitting.

Structure

Exam pattern

Every section is compulsory, there is no negative marking for wrong answers, and a candidate may attempt the sections in any order. The test runs 60 minutes in computer based mode, and SLS Nagpur's own page states the arithmetic the structure table only implies, that SLAT carries 60 questions for one mark each, on the SLS Nagpur undergraduate admissions page. Candidates registered under the Persons with Disabilities category sit the same paper on a longer clock, because SIU allows 20 minutes of compensatory time for every 60 minutes of test, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin.

Sitting both papers does not average anything. A candidate may take both December 19 and December 26, 2026, and the SLAT 2027 Bulletin carries only the higher of the two into the final percentile calculation.

What SIU then does with the two papers is described twice, in opposite terms, in the same paragraph of the SLAT important dates page: "There will be no normalization", and, four sentences later, "the question papers will be normalised for the level of difficulty across all two tests". The bulletin repeats both sentences. What SIU does claim there is that the spread of questions leaves no unfair advantage to candidates who opt for any specific test or for multiple tests.

What to study

Syllabus

The bulletin carries no syllabus, and nor does the SLAT 2027 test structure page. The five section labels, Logical Reasoning, Legal Reasoning, Analytical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension and General Knowledge, come with a question count and a mark count each and no topic list underneath them, so a candidate preparing for Legal Reasoning is working from a section name rather than from any body of statute or doctrine SIU has committed to.

What SIU does describe is question form, and it describes it about its own practice paper: the SLAT mock test page calls the mock an MCQ test in which each question has four responses and the candidate chooses the appropriate one.

How to prepare

Preparation and books

The only preparation material SIU itself puts out for SLAT 2027 is one dated practice sitting, closed to anyone who has not already paid. The notice on the SLAT mock test page sets the mock test for Wednesday 16th September 2026, available from 10:00 AM to 11:00 PM, and limits it to applicants whose registration and payment were complete by 11:59 PM on 14th September 2026. One attempt, one device: a second login from a different device may get the account blocked, and SIU's advice is to use a desktop or laptop rather than a phone. The mock has no public link, and the username and password reach each eligible applicant by SMS, WhatsApp and email at whatever contact details were given at registration.

The mock is built to the live paper's shape, five sections of twelve questions, and the notice names the controls a candidate will meet on test day: Next, Mark for Review and Clear, a running left-hand count of answered, not answered, marked for review and not visited questions, free movement between sections, and a submission summary before the final submit.

That one sitting is the whole of SIU's own preparation material. No reading list, no sample paper and no past paper is published with the bulletin or anywhere on the SLAT site.

Where it is held

Exam centres

The SLAT test cities page lists 62 cities across India where the computer based test will run, and a candidate may name up to three of them in order of preference. SIU reserves the right to add, delete or change test cities without prior intimation, and warns that a different test city in a nearby area may be allotted where a preference cannot be met.

The bulletin notes that computer based test centre capacities are limited, which is why it advises deciding before registration which tests to sit. A city is as far as the choice goes: the bulletin prints the test timing, the test centre and its address on the admit card and nowhere earlier, so a candidate is booking travel to a city and learning the building and the hour only after registration has closed.

After the exam

Answer key

SIU never puts the marked paper in front of the candidate. Nothing in the SLAT 2027 Bulletin, or on the SLAT site's test structure, admit card and important dates pages, offers a key to check a score against, and the bulletin forecloses the argument that would follow one: the scores published by SIU are final and are not subject to any appeal or revaluation.

The one provision SIU does describe keeps the candidate out of it. Where an error in the question paper comes to light, a Scrutiny Committee rules on it once the test is over, and the bulletin makes that ruling final.

Scores

Result and scorecard

The result has a shelf life. The SLAT 2027 Bulletin declares the SLAT 2027 result on January 12, 2027 on the SLAT website and keeps it there up till February 12, 2027, so a candidate who never saves the scorecard is left with nothing to bring to an institute.

Print it, the bulletin says, and keep it. It calls that printout the candidate's official result, makes it a condition of appearing for the further selection process of the institutes, and tells a candidate who is admitted to retain it until the programme is completed. Only a candidate who actually sat the paper is entitled to one.

One wording is worth reading twice. The bulletin shortlists for Personal Interaction on entrance test marks, and in the very next sentence says a candidate may be shortlisted for more than one programme on her or his overall SLAT percentile. Marks and percentile describe the same step in the same paragraph, and it is the percentile that the higher of two attempts feeds.

Scores you need

Cutoff

There is no SLAT cutoff to look up, because the bulletin hands the job to the institutes. The SLAT 2027 Bulletin has the cut-off for shortlisting calculated separately for each programme, and leaves the category-wise cut offs for the merit list and the wait list to the website of the respective institutes, with wait list movement depending on the vacant seats available.

That pushes the only binding numbers onto four institute websites, published after each school has run its own Personal Interaction round, one programme and one category at a time. A raw SLAT mark therefore has no settled meaning on the day the result comes out.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

Nothing pools the four schools' seats. Each Symbiosis Law School conducts its own admission process for each of its programmes, and the SLAT 2027 Bulletin gives all four the same merit total: the 60-mark entrance test scaled up to 70, plus a Personal Interaction worth 30, out of 100.

One absence ends the application. The bulletin requires a candidate to attend every component of the PI to be eligible for any five-year law programme at SLS, and a candidate who misses one is not placed on the merit list, the wait list or even the reject list.

The calendars for the 2027 cycle diverge sharply after that common January 12 result.

SLS Pune closes its programme payment on 7th January, 2027, publishes its PI shortlist on 18th January, 2027, runs online interactions from 28th January, 2027 to 06th February, 2027, and declares its first merit list on 16th February, 2027, with classes commencing in the first week of July 2027 on a tentative basis, according to the SLS Pune page on the SLAT site.

SLS NOIDA finishes latest. Its PI shortlist appears on January 19, 2027, slot booking closes at 11:59 PM on January 21, 2027, interactions run from January 30 to February 05, 2027, and its third merit list, if required, opens on March 22, 2027 and closes on April 01, 2027, per the SLS NOIDA page on the SLAT site.

SLS Hyderabad is the one that starts teaching in June. Its payment closes on January 08, 2027, the shortlist appears on January 15, 2027, online interactions run from January 23, 2027 to January 31, 2027, and its first merit list lands on February 08, 2027, with classes from June 21, 2027, per the SLS Hyderabad page on the SLAT site.

SLS Nagpur closes payment on January 14, 2027, shortlists on January 16, 2027, interviews from January 22, 2027 to January 31, 2027 and declares its first merit list on February 05, 2027, according to the SLS Nagpur page on the SLAT site. Its own site adds that the interaction is conducted online by a panel of experts from industry and academia, and that a candidate who does not book a slot in time gets a forced allotment rather than a second chance.

A place on a merit list is not a seat. Every list SLS Pune and SLS NOIDA declare carries its own payment or closing date, SLS Hyderabad and SLS Nagpur date their first two lists and make the third conditional on vacant seats, and the bulletin holds every admission provisional until the fees are paid by the due date.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

The SLAT site describes the test as providing access to four leading law schools in India, per the SLAT 2027 homepage. The SIU UG Prospectus 2026-27 prints the intake each of them declares.

The Hyderabad rows are disputed by Hyderabad. Its own Admission 2027 page states that the total intake is 240 seats, 120 of B.B.A. LL.B. and 120 of B.A. LL.B., per the SLS Hyderabad Admission 2027 procedure. For the same school and the same two programmes the SIU UG Prospectus 2026-27 prints 180 and 180. The two carry different year labels, the prospectus for 2026-27 and the Hyderabad page for the 2027-28 admission SLAT 2027 feeds, and neither says the other is superseded. Both counts are current, so the seat count at SLS Hyderabad is two numbers until SIU reconciles them.

Two quota rules are specific to the law schools rather than to Symbiosis generally. The 5% reservation for children and wards of defence personnel applies only at SLS Pune, and only to its B.A. LL.B. (Honours) and B.B.A. LL.B. (Honours) programmes; a candidate claiming that category is treated as OPEN at every other institute applied to, per the SLAT 2027 Bulletin. And a quarter of every programme at Nagpur is reserved under a lease deed. SLS Nagpur's chart sets its sanctioned intake at 120 for each programme and splits it 30 seats for Nagpur domiciled candidates against 90 for the rest, with 18 Scheduled Caste, 9 Scheduled Tribe and 4 Persons with Disabilities seats inside that, per the SLS Nagpur undergraduate admissions page. The domicile itself demands five years of residence in Nagpur Urban plus either graduation from Nagpur University or Class 10 and Class 12 certificates from the Maharashtra Board, CISCE, CBSE or ICSE; both documents are explicit that certificates from other state boards and foreign school boards are not accepted.

Get help

Contact

The Symbiosis Test Secretariat is the office behind SLAT, and the SLAT contact page gives one postal address for it, Gram: Lavale, Tal: Mulshi, District: Pune 412115, with 9071013499 and +91-020-61936226/27 for calls and info@slat-test.org for email.

Email stops being the channel once a candidate has an ID, though. The bulletin routes a registered candidate to "Raise A Query" inside the SLAT login, and calls generating that ticket essential to resolving it. Above the ticket it names two escalations and no more: registrar@siu.edu.in for a dispute with the Secretariat, and, where the Registrar's decision does not satisfy, the University's Ombudsman, whose details sit on SIU's student wellbeing page. Any such dispute falls under the legal jurisdiction of Pune.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact test dates, application windows, fees, cutoffs, answer keys, results, and per-school seat/merit details change 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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