UPES M.Des Admissions 2026
Ranked #45 Among Universities in India by NIRF | 1950+ Students Placed, 91% Placement, 800+ Recruiters
Hello students! Preparing for design entrance exams like NID, NIFT, and UCEED can be intimidating, especially when you are preparing parallely with the 12th class board exams. We understand that the struggle is real and students need proper understanding and study plans, and strategy to excel in both areas. This article is curated by the experts to help students with important tips and strategies to help them understand and effectively prepare for the design exams like NID, UCEED, and NIFT with the 12th board exams.
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Let’s begin with three essential questions as follows:
Do you believe that artistic talent is purely natural?
How to prepare for design exams, when it's beyond a fixed curriculum?
Is it difficult to manage both the 12th board examination and the Design preparation journey?
If your answer is yes you are not alone, thousands of students face this dual challenge every year, struggling to bridge the gap between traditional academics and creative learning, required for design exams like NID, NIFT and UCEED.
Unlike other academic subjects, design entrance examination test abilities such as :
Visualisation Skills
Observation Skills
Creative Problem-Solving
Spatial Reasoning
These are not found in our current school curriculums, and they operate in different neural pathways than memorizing equations or historical facts.
Students are also advised to go through these Articles:
UCEED Study Material 2026: UCEED Preparation Books, Download PDFs
Tips to Sketching Human Figures and Interaction for UCEED 2026
Design Aptitude Tests evaluates you on abilities and skills that require creativity, spatial reasoning and innovative thinking. Traditional academic subjects are more focussed on curriculums designed for the skills like logical, analytical and factual reasoning.
Fundamentally, this is the reason why a student struggles with design entrances, while others with average academic performance excel in creative problems. The skills tested in creative exams include:
Mental Rotations, Imagination for Forms and shapes interpretation.
Recognition for the patterns, details and visual memory testing
Design thinking and user-centric solutions
2D-3D correlations among the shapes and cross-sectional understanding.
However ,most of the skills are easy to learn or develop over the time with regular practise and structured thinking patterns.
For success, students are recommended to follow the provided time distribution below for preparation for design entrance exams and 12th board exams preparation:

From the experience of the students, teachers and experts, it has been formulated that 80:20 principle helps to caters the challenge of balance between design skills and traditional exams as follows:
80%: Dedicating for the weaker sections
20%: Practising the Stronger Areas
Let’s discuss the strategy for executing the 80:20 strategy for a time frame of 06 months.
Time Frame | Focus Split (Design: Boards) | Design Tasks | Boards Exam | Daily Hourly |
Month 1-2 | 70: 30 | Daily Sketching and | NCERT Completion with all given exercise in the text book, with conceptual clarity | 5-6 hours |
Month 3-4 | 50: 50 | Mock Test and | Problem-solving Applied, Difficult subjects revision | 6-7 hours |
Month 5-6 | 40: 60 | Work on Skills like Observation and Sketching | Previous year papers | 6-8 hours |
Also check:
Students preparing for the design entrance exams with the 12th boards preparation can go through these common patterns and mistakes of previous students to understand what did work for them and where they need to improve, and therefore can prepare effectively for the exams better.
Early Beginners: Choose to begin the preparation early, from the class 11th itself.
Dedicate Practise: Daily practicing for 15-20 minutes at least for creative sketching based exercises.
Time Bound Exercises: Followed this rule for preparation of both 12th boards and design exams. Students can take regular mock tests, sample papers and previous year question papers with a set timer.
Given below are some of the common mistakes that students do while preparing for 12th boards and design entrance exams with the provided solutions they can incorporate in their preparation strategies:
Mistake | Problem | Solution |
Aiming Perfectionism | Spending a great time in sketching one art | Set time Limits and focus on progress and communication |
Ignoring either exam | Over Prioritising one area | Keep a balance approach of 40% time dedication to each and rest revisions |
Over-Coaching | Dependency on Others for personal success | Focus on Self-Study use coaching and other aids for doubts clarification |
Social-Media Distraction | Wasted focus Time | Reduce usage or look for resources helpful to preparation |
Students are also advised to go through these Articles:
The journey of balancing 12th boards exams with the design entrance preparation isn’t just about time management, it’s more a journey of a growth mindset that embraces both analytical and creative thinking. The skills developed serve you throughout your career as designer.
The key to success lies in understanding that design skills are learnable and starting early is always advantageous over time, rather than waiting for the last minute preparation.
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On Question asked by student community
Hello,
Getting admission in IITs or NID for BDes depends on a few things: your entrance exam score, portfolio, and sometimes your interview performance.
IITs (for BDes) : Admission is mainly through UCEED . You need a good rank in UCEED to get in.
NID : Admission is through NID DAT (Design Aptitude Test) . Your portfolio and DAT score matter a lot.
If your preparation and scores are strong, you have a chance. You can check previous years’ cut-offs to see where you stand.
Hope it helps !
Here are top BDes (Fashion Design) colleges in Bangalore:
National Institute of Fashion Technology , Bangalore – Top choice
JD Institute of Fashion Technology
Vogue Institute of Art and Design
IIFA Multimedia
Army Institute of Fashion and Design
Taking a second drop is not an issue if you clear the required entrance exams or meet the eligibility criteria.
FLAME University Pune is a good option for B.Des if you’re looking for a creative and interdisciplinary learning environment . The university offers a well-structured design program combined with liberal arts, allowing students to explore multiple interests It has a beautiful and modern campus with strong academic support and personalized attention due to smaller batch sizes. However, it is more know liberal arts and business programs, so if you want a purely design-focused education, you might also consider institutes like MIT-WPU or Shiv Nadar University. Overall, FLAME is suitable for students who want a broad, flexible design education and can afford the higher fees.
CUET qualifies BDes Fashion Designing students.
The basis for admission is the CUET score.
yes, Indeed, CUET qualifies BDes Fashion Designing students.
Admission CUET score is very important.
Ranked 2nd in the IIRF 2023 Design School Ranking | Approved by AICTE | Highest CTC 13 LPA
Ranked amongst top 3% universities globally (QS Rankings)
No. 1 Design & Fashion Institute by ASSOCHAM, India Today, Outlook and The Week rankings
Courses offered in- Fashion Design, Product Design, Communication Design, Interior & Spatial Design & Animation & VFX Design
Ranked #45 amongst Universities in India by NIRF | Ranked #1 in Academic Reputation in India by QS World University Rankings
Tie-ups with over 100 international Universities in USA, UK, France and Australia. Wide Range of scholarships available.