CEED Exam Date 2026 (Out): Check Complete M.Des Exam Schedule Here

It is very much possible to prepare for CEED without coaching. But before you embark on exam preparation on your own, you need the conviction that you can do it. If you are not convinced yourself and only decide to forgo coaching on the advice of others, the journey may be difficult.

If you prepare for the exam on your own, you need to be serious and plan the preparation smartly. For instance, after going through the syllabus, you must be able to decide the difficulty level, time it will take to cover the syllabus, and do revision. 

Remember, there are many instances of toppers who managed to ace the CEED exam without the aid of any coaching. Further, the final outcome may not depend on whether you do coaching or not, but the quality of your preparation.

IIT Bombay will issue admit card for CEED 2025 on January 3, 2025 (1 pm). Admit cards will be issued to all candidates who successfully register for the exam. 

The candidate can download the admit card online at ceed.iitb.ac.in.

To download the admit card, log in to the candidate portals using your login details.

On the day of the exam, the candidate had to bring with them the admit card and a valid photo id proof. The admit card will contain details like the name, roll number, exam date, exam timings, and name and address of the exam center.

The CEED 2026 applications are open now, from October 1, 2025. The application has to be filled online at ceed.iitb.ac.in.

The candidate can apply with both regular and late fees.

All the details pertaining to the CEED 2026 application form have been updated on the admission portals, including the information brochure. The candidate needs to carefully go through the brochure to check their eligibility. Note that information entered by the candidate at the time of submitting their application form will be verified at the time of counseling. Any candidate who doesn’t meet the criteria will be disqualified.

The CEED 2026 exam is expected to be conducted in the second week of January 2026. So, the candidate has plenty of time to prepare for the exam. Given the CEED 2026 syllabus is of moderate to difficult, you would ideally need 6 months or so to prepare for the exam. 

That being said, if your fundamentals are strong, you can cover the syllabus in less time. Before starting you preparation, go through the syllabus and pattern, and draft a plan. Once the plan is ready, get going with full guns blazing.

Note that to fully prepare for the exam, you need to solve sample papers and take mock tests.

To appear in the CEED 2026 exam, the candidate must have passed a degree, Diploma, or postgraduate degree exam of minimum three years. There is no limit on the upper age limit or number of attempts for appearing in CEED.

The eligibility criteria that candidates need to meet for appearing in the CEED have been explained below.

• Qualifying exam: The candidate must have completed a degree, Diploma, or postgraduate programme of a minimum of THREE years (after 10+2). Or, Appearing for the final exam of such a programme by July 2026 or, Must have passed the GD Arts Diploma programme (10+5) level by July 2025.
• Age limit - No upper age limit.
• Number of Attempts - The CEED exam can be attempted any number of times.

It is incumbent on the candidate to carefully go through the eligibility criteria before filling out the CEED application form. It is because if the candidate doesn't meet any of the criteria, then he or she can be disqualified at any stage of the admission process.

The updated application fee that candidates have to pay an application fee when applying for the CEED exam is shown below.

Women candidates - INR 2000

SC, ST, PwD candidates - INR 2000

All other candidates - INR 4000

The candidate will have to pay a fee as per the category they belong. If the candidate selects the wrong category and pay the wrong feels, he or she may be disqualified. So, care must be taken when selecting ones category.

A total of 6037 candidates registered for CEED 2023, out of which 4,910 candidates appeared, and 1,886 candidates qualified in the exam. By comparison, in 2020, 5,564 students took CEED exam and 1,724 qualified the exam. Common Entrance Examination for Design was given by 5,491 in 2019 and out of this number, 1,179 candidates qualified the design entrance test. Along with national-level exams like NID that and NIFT, CEED is among the most popular PG entrance exams in the country. The application form for CEED 2024 will open tentatively in the last week of September 2023.

Seats available for CEED admission vary from one institute to the other (that accept the exam scores for admission). For e. g, IIT Hyderabad has 30 seats, while IISc Bangalore has 18 seats. Candidates are informed that CEED is just a qualifying exam. Thus, any aspirant who clears CEED exam may have to appear in further admission rounds that may be conducted by the participating college. The application process at the participating colleges typically open once the CEED entrance exam results are announced.

The difficulty level of CEED exam has been maintained by authorities over the years. However, most design aspirants share that if difficulty level of all design entrance exams conducted for PG level courses is compared then CEED is slightly easier than NID Entrance Exam. This is primarily because the drawing questions asked in NID that are considered to be tougher than those put forth in CEED exam. Note that CEED exam is for admission to the M.Des courses offered by the eight participating colleges. Meanwhile, the NID that for the M.Des programme has three participating colleges.

IIT Bombay will release the qualifying cut-off for Part A in the first week of February 2026. Cut-off is released in the form of mean and standard deviation. 

The mean and standard deviation for Part-A (CEED 2025) are 45.48 and 16.98, respectively and for Part A (CEED 2024) were 41.90 and 16.72, respectively.

The qualifying cut-off is the minimum marks a candidate needs to score in the paper to get shortlisted. Part B answer booklets will only be evaluated if the candidate gets shortlisted.

So, if you don’t meet Part A cut-off marks, you will not get shortlisted and you Part B answer booklets will not be evaluated. Also, note that only shortlisted candidates will be assigned a merit rank in CEED 2026.

It is very much possible to prepare for CEED without coaching. But before you embark on exam preparation on your own, you need the conviction that you can do it. If you are not convinced yourself and only decide to forgo coaching on the advice of others, the journey may be difficult.

If you prepare for the exam on your own, you need to be serious and plan the preparation smartly. For instance, after going through the syllabus, you must be able to decide the difficulty level, time it will take to cover the syllabus, and do revision. 

Remember, there are many instances of toppers who managed to ace the CEED exam without the aid of any coaching. Further, the final outcome may not depend on whether you do coaching or not, but the quality of your preparation.