For millions of Indian school-leavers, the road to a central university no longer runs through board-exam cutoffs alone. Since 2022, undergraduate admission to central universities — and a growing list of other participating institutions — has been routed through a single national test: the Common University Entrance Test (CUET). Conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), it has separate editions for undergraduate (CUET-UG) and postgraduate (CUET-PG) programmes. Here is how the system works, from the first click on the application form to the final seat allotment.

Why CUET was created

Before 2022, admission to popular central-university courses was decided largely by Class 12 board marks — and the system had visibly broken. Cutoffs for sought-after Delhi University programmes had climbed to 99–100 per cent, a figure that measured board-mark inflation more than student ability. Different state boards marked with different generosity, so a 95 per cent from one board and a 95 from another meant different things. The National Education Policy, 2020, proposed a common entrance test to fix this: one yardstick, applied equally, with universities free to set their own additional criteria. CUET is that yardstick — an attempt to replace an opaque, board-dependent lottery with a single comparable score.

The reform was contested from the start, and the objections are worth understanding. Critics argued that a national MCQ test advantages students who can afford coaching — reproducing, in a new form, the inequality it was meant to erase. Some state governments and universities resisted, seeing an encroachment on their autonomy. And the NTA’s own conduct of the early editions drew fire: the first CUET-UG in 2022 was marred by last-minute centre changes, technical glitches and confusing schedules, damaging confidence in the new system. Much of the CUET story since has been the NTA trying to rebuild that trust, one smoother cycle at a time.

What CUET is — and who runs it

CUET is a computer-based, multiple-choice examination held across the country and at centres abroad. The NTA designs and conducts the test, declares the results, and hands the score data to the participating universities. CUET-UG typically covers three kinds of papers: language tests, domain-specific subjects aligned with the Class 12 syllabus, and a general test of reasoning and quantitative aptitude. CUET-PG tests subject knowledge for master’s programmes. Results are declared as subject-wise scores and percentiles rather than raw marks — a candidate’s performance is measured relative to everyone who took that paper, which is how the NTA compares scores across multiple shifts and days. To get a sense of scale, the 2026 CUET-PG edition ran through March in dozens of shifts across more than 150 subjects, drawing over five lakh candidates, with results declared in April.

The percentile system deserves a moment’s attention because students consistently misunderstand it. A 98 percentile does not mean 98 marks — it means you scored better than 98 per cent of candidates in that paper. Because the test runs in multiple shifts with different question sets, raw marks cannot be compared directly; the NTA uses a normalisation process to place everyone on a common scale. The practical consequence: your rank depends not just on how well you did, but on how everyone else did on your shift’s paper. Chasing a “safe score” from last year’s cutoffs is therefore less reliable than it looks — cutoffs move with the applicant pool, not just with difficulty.

From application to result

The cycle follows a familiar rhythm each year. For CUET-UG 2026, applications opened in February, closed in March, the examination was held in May and results were declared in July. The stages run like this: candidates register online on the NTA’s CUET portal, filling in personal details, choosing subjects and test centres, and paying the application fee; admit cards are issued a few days before the exam; candidates sit the computer-based test at their allotted centres; the NTA then releases provisional answer keys, invites objections, and publishes a final key before declaring results. The scorecard shows subject-wise scores and percentiles, and it is this document — not the board-exam marksheet — that universities use as the basis for admission. It is worth noting that the NTA’s role ends at the result: it does not allot seats.

Two practical notes that trip up applicants every year. First, subject selection matters enormously: universities specify which CUET subjects they will consider for each programme, and a high score in the wrong combination is useless for the course you want. Check each target university’s subject requirements before choosing papers, not after. Second, the objection window on the provisional answer key is short and fee-based per question — but successful challenges have changed results, so it is worth reviewing the key seriously rather than skipping it.

Counselling: the step students get wrong

The single most misunderstood part of CUET is what happens after the result. Counselling is not conducted centrally by the NTA. Each participating university runs its own admission process on its own portal, with its own schedule, fees and rounds. The broad sequence is similar everywhere:

• University registration: candidates register separately on the website of each university they want to attend — a CUET score alone does not create an application.
• Preference filling: candidates list their preferred courses and colleges in order of priority.
• Merit lists and cutoffs: each university publishes course-wise merit lists or cutoffs based on CUET scores, sometimes across several rounds.
• Seat allotment: seats are allotted according to merit, category reservations and the preferences locked in.
• Document verification and fee payment: allotted candidates upload and verify documents — Class 10 and 12 marksheets, the CUET scorecard, photo ID, category certificates — and pay the admission fee to confirm the seat.

Most universities run around three counselling rounds, extending the process until seats are filled, and some institutions add interview rounds for specific programmes. Because each university sets its own deadlines, the most common — and most avoidable — failure is missing a university’s separate registration window while waiting for a “central” counselling that does not exist. The practical advice is simple: the day the CUET result is declared, make a list of the universities you want, open each one’s admission portal, and register. The test may be national, but admission is local — and the calendar that matters is the university’s, not the NTA’s.

CUET in the landscape of Indian entrance exams

CUET-UG now sits alongside — not instead of — India’s alphabet soup of entrance tests. JEE and NEET remain the gateways for engineering and medicine; CLAT for law; CAT for management. CUET’s distinctive role is as the general-purpose gateway for everything else: humanities, sciences, commerce and the professional courses that central and participating universities offer. For a student unsure between, say, economics and computer science, CUET keeps more doors open with a single preparation effort than any single-career exam does. The trade-off is breadth over depth: CUET rewards wide syllabus coverage and speed, while JEE/NEET reward deep problem-solving in a narrow band.

FAQs

Do Class 12 board marks still matter for CUET admissions?

Mostly as eligibility: universities typically require a minimum percentage in Class 12 to apply, but the admission decision itself rests on the CUET score. A few programmes add their own criteria, so always check the university’s bulletin.

What is a “good” CUET percentile?

It depends entirely on the course and university — popular DU programmes have closed at 98+ percentile in early rounds, while many good programmes admit in the 80s and 90s. Use previous years’ cutoffs as a rough guide, not a promise.

Can I apply to multiple universities with one CUET score?

Yes — that is the point of the common test. But you must register separately on each university’s own admission portal; the NTA does not forward your application.

Compiled by the Khabar 24h Editorial Desk from publicly available sources.