IISC and seven Indian institutes of Technology conducts every year jointly GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) exam on the behalf of National Coordination Board for admission to Master's degree programs in Engineering/Technology/Architecture as well as for Doctoral programs in relevant branches of Science with MHRD or other government scholarships/assistantships.

As the notification for GATE 2012 has been declared officially. There are some changes in admission process, eligibility criteria etc. This year, only final year students are eligible for appearing in GATE exam. Pre-final year students are not eligible to write. Moreover, in application process, Candidates appearing in this exam have to apply through online only by accessing the zonal GATE websites of IISC and seven IITs. After doing form submission through online, candidate has to take a print out of the filled application form and affix a recent photograph with his signature on it. Afterwards, it should be receipt by the respective GATE office with other necessary documents on or before 24 October 2011.

In 2012, admit cards can be downloaded from the websites of zonal GATE from 2 January 2012 only. From this year onwards, sending admit cards by post have been discontinued. In the examination center, candidate has to bring admit card to the test center with at least one original and valid photo ID card.

Apart from this, there will be two additional papers – AR and AG in GATE 2012. These papers will be conducted online. Besides, paper with codes GG, TF, AE and MN  will also be conducted online. The online GATE examination will held in two sessions on Sunday, 29th January, 2012.

Forenoon session (09:00 hrs to 12:00 hrs): AR, GG and TF.
Afternoon session (14:00 hrs to 17:00 hrs): AE, AG and MN

In online GATE exam 2012, the question paper will contain multiple choice type questions wherein each question will have four choices for answer. For numerical answer type questions, each question will have a number as the answer. These numerical answer type questions may have between 5 to 10 in every question paper.

So these are some changes in GATE 2012. Hope you will go through all the important points before applying for the exam.