The Indian Institutes of Technology offer Master of Design (MDes) programme for which a national level entrance exam is organized. CEED is the Common Entrance Exam for Design which is qualifying in nature. Meaning that one has to appear and qualify it to be eligible for further tests and interviews held individually by the institutes. Apart from MDes, it also makes one eligible for PhD design programs at IISc and IITs. While qualifying the exam does not guarantee a seat but it plays a major role in selection.

Today IIT Bombay released e-brochure for CEED examination 2018. The much awaited dates for examination are now available. According to the official calendar of events, registrations will start on October 9, 2017. Candidates will be able to apply online with regular fees until November 10, 2017. From then onwards to November 17, 2017, a late fee will be applicable but nevertheless one can apply with it. However beyond that date no forms will be accepted.

Almost a month after last date of form submission, the admit card of exam will be issued. It must be kept in mind that even admit cards will be issued online only. Candidates will be able to download it from December 25, 2017. The document contains candidate & exam information which are same as the ones entered by candidate in application form. In some rare cases there are discrepancies which can be rectified until January 5, 2018.

The date of CEED 2018 exam is January 20, 2018. There will be two parts in the exam. Part A will be questions of multiple choice, multiple select, and numerical answer type that have to be answered in a computer. This section will only be qualifying in nature. The cut off marks in Part A will equal X + Σ; where X is average marks of test takers in open category and Σ is standard deviation. Cut off for SC / ST / PwD candidates will be 50% of the former.

In Part B of the question paper there will be questions to assess design, drawing and writing skills. While questions will appear on screen, answers will have to be given in an answer sheet provided in the examination hall.

With the growing popularity of CEED, the exam will be held this time at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Trissur, and Vishakhapatnam. There will be multiple centres in a city depending upon the number of aspirants from there.

Candidates can register as per schedule. The website for registrations would be ceed.iitb.ac.in. Registration fee is Rs 1100 for all women candidates, Rs 1100 for all SC/ST/PwD candidates, Rs 2200 for all other candidates. This fee amount will be applicable as regular fees whereas late fee will be uniformly applicable to all candidates after regular closing date.