gate 2010

Apart from adding aptitude questions in the syllabus, GATE 2010 has some other important changes. The GATE 10 score will be valid for two years while the GATE 2009 score was valid only for one year. Due to the increase in validity to two years, third year engineering students can also take GATE and use the score obtained for applying for masters programs after one year. IIT Guwahati is the organizing institute for GATE 2010 while IIT Roorkee was the organizing institute for GATE 2009. Out of the 21 papers in GATE, 19 will be conducted in the paper based format. For the first time two papers - Textile Engineering & Fibre Science and Mining Engineering will have a computer based online test. These tests will be conducted at the IIT and IISc campuses one week before the date of other papers i.e. on 7th February, 2010. This is the first time that any paper of GATE is being conducted as computer based test and given the fact the CAT is also going to be conducted as a computer based test this year, it could be that IITs are experimenting with the online test format. Based on the success of this idea, they could make all streams computer based test next year.

GATE 2010 will be conducted on 14th February, 2010 and the results will be announced on 15th March, 2010. The application forms are available at specific bank counters from 22nd September to 28th October, 2009.
Students can apply for GATE online through the Internet or offline. The online application fee is Rs 800 while the offline application fee is Rs 1000 for general and OBC category candidates.

Increased Competition

First, due to the economic slowdown there is a scarcity of software and other jobs for fresh engineering graduates. This is leading to more students applying for M.Tech and GATE. It is all the more attractive due to the Rs. 8000 per month stipend for all GATE qualified students during the masters program. Second, the validity of GATE score has been increased to two years, which means pre-final year students can also take up the exam. Third, lot of new engineering colleges have been set up in the last few years which means the number of engineering graduates passing out every year is always increasing. Due to these factors, the number of applicants for GATE is likely to increase to 3 Lakhs in GATE 2010. In GATE 2009, there were 2 lakh candidates. This means there will be increased competition especially in the streams of Computer Science and Electronics and Communication.