Top 20 Fashion Designing Colleges in India: Admission Process, Eligibility, Exam Pattern, and Selection Process
Posted On June 17, 2025
Published by Shikha Kumari on Jun 17, 2025
India is home to a lot of fashion designing colleges and courses. The top fashion designing colleges in India are government colleges while some of the private colleges are also amongst the top colleges. In this blog, we’ll discuss the top 20 fashion designing colleges in India and their admission process in detail. The below table summarizes the top colleges in India and their ownership status.
| College Name | Ownership |
| NIFT Delhi | Government |
| NIFT Mumbai | Government |
| NIFT Bangalore | Government |
| NIFT Hyderabad | Government |
| NIFT Chennai | Government |
| NIFT Gandhinagar | Government |
| NIFT Kolkata | Government |
| NIFT Patna | Government |
| NID Ahmedabad | Government |
| NIFT Jodhpur | Government |
| NIFT Kannur | Government |
| Symbiosis Institute Of Design | Private |
| NIFT Bhubaneswar | Government |
| NIFT Raebareili | Government |
| NIFT Shillong | Government |
| AIFD | Private |
| NIFT Kangra | Government |
| Pearl Academy | Private |
| JD Institute of Fashion Technology | Private |
| Amity School of Fashion Technology | Private |
Entrance Exams
All government and private colleges take admission through one of the following exams-
- UCEED (Undergraduate Common Entrance Exam for Design)
- NIFTEE (National Institute of Fashion Technology Entrance Examination)
- NID-DAT (NID Design Aptitude Test)
- AIDAT (All India Design Aptitude Test)
- FDDI AIST (Footwear Design and Development Institute All India Selection Test)
- GLS DAT (GLS Design Aptitude Test)
- iDAT (Indian Institute of Art and Design Entrance Exam)
Exam Pattern
The followed exam pattern in all the exams is as follows, all exams may or may not consider all the three steps-
- Creative ability test (CAT) – It is a paper based examination
- General ability test (GAT) – It is a LAN based CBT (Computer Based Test) examination.
- Personality Test – It is an offline interview round.
Eligibility
- To be eligible for the B.Des course, students must have completed their 10+2 from a recognised institute in India. They must achieve an aggregate score of 50 per cent, (5-10 per cent relaxation for candidates belonging to the reserved categories).
- M.Des eligibility criteria require candidates to have a bachelor’s degree in either B.Des or any other relevant discipline with a minimum of 60% aggregate score from a recognized university.
Admission Requirements
| Exam Name | Description | Criteria |
| UCEED | The purpose of the UCEED entrance exam is to offer admission to B.Des courses at IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Roorkee, IIT Indore and IIITDM Jabalpur and some other private design institutes. | The applicant must have passed the 10+2 (or equivalent) examination. A candidate can give at most 2 attempts. |
| NIFTEE | This exam is for admission into various undergraduate and postgraduate programs at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT). | For undergraduate programs, the maximum age limit is 24 years, while there is no age limit for postgraduate programs. |
| NID-DAT | It is a national level exam conducted annually for admission to the B. Des and M. Des programs. It is conducted in 2 stages – Prelims and Mains. | Candidates must be below 20 years of age for B.Des and below 30 years of age for M.Des. |
| AIDAT | It is a National Level Entrance Examination that prepares candidates for admission to universities and institutions of national repute. | Candidates must have completed a 10+2 or Bachelor’s degree from a recognized board/ institute. |
| FDDI AIST | It is an entrance exam organized by the Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate programs in fields like footwear design, fashion design, leather design, and related areas. | Applicants must not be more than 25 years old. Candidates must have passed 10+2 / Intermediate. Candidates appearing in 12th are also eligible to apply. |
| GLS DAT | It renders admission in four-year bachelor’s as well as five years master’s programs in the field of Fashion Designing, Communication Design, Environment Design and Product and Industrial Design in GLS Institute of Design. | Candidates who have passed higher secondary (10+2) with a minimum of 50% marks. |
| iDAT | It is a qualifying entrance test for admission to Bachelor degree courses in Fashion Design, Interior Architecture & Design, and Communication Design, offered by IIAD, New Delhi | The candidates must have passed 10+2 in any stream from a recognised university. |
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