Thirteen Admission Deadlines That Pass Before the Board Exams Begin

The entrance exam calendar after Class 12 does not begin when the board results arrive. It begins in August of Class 12. Here is what opens when, what is already closing, and what a missed deadline really costs.

The deadline most families meet in February

A door mentioned too late

Nila is in Class 12 at a CBSE school in Chennai. She has been drawing for as long as her parents can remember: in notebook margins, on the backs of tuition worksheets, in a comic about her grandmother’s kitchen that went round the whole family. She is also a strong PCM student, so the plan has always been engineering.

Then, one evening in February, a cousin home from college asks whether she has ever thought about design. He mentions NID. That night, her father looks it up and finds the application closed at the end of November. Of all the surprises in the entrance exam calendar after Class 12, this is the most common: a door nobody mentioned until it had quietly shut.

A pattern, not a person

Nila, I should say plainly, is invented. She is a composite, built from the way these calendars actually fall rather than from any one student, and every detail of her life here is made up. The timing that caught her is entirely real, though. It catches every family that assumes the admissions year begins where the school year ends. Notice, too, what her story does not contain: no lazy student and no careless parent. She simply lived on the calendar most of us grew up with. The institutions she might have loved were running on another.

What this guide sets out to do

So this guide does something the usual exam-date tables do not. It walks through the year in the order your child lives it, from the August of Class 12 to the counselling rounds of the next summer. Along the way, it names which windows open when and which close before the boards. Perhaps most usefully, it shows what each kind of miss actually costs. If you are reading this with a knot in your stomach, that is understandable. Most of what follows is recoverable. The few parts that are not are worth knowing early, precisely so that they stay that way.

Why the entrance exam calendar after Class 12 starts before the boards

The boards come last, not first

Look first at where the board examinations sit. Tamil Nadu’s Class 12 public examinations usually run through March, while CBSE’s Class 12 papers begin in mid-February. Results for both follow in May. Most families organise the whole of Class 12 around those dates, which is natural: the boards are the one fixed point everyone agrees on. The entrance exam calendar after Class 12, however, runs on a different logic. Many institutions want applications months before any board result exists, because their own selection takes several stages.

Thirteen windows that shut before the first board paper

Count them, in the order they close. IIM Bangalore’s undergraduate programmes stop taking applications in mid-October. CLAT closes at the end of October, and UCEED, IIT Bombay’s design entrance, in early November. AILET, which NLU Delhi runs separately from CLAT, closes in the second week of November. Then come Ashoka’s first round and NID’s design test, both in late November, alongside FLAME’s early cycle and JEE Main’s first session. December brings SLAT, the Symbiosis law test, NIFT, and the National Defence Academy form. January brings Krea’s first round and CUET. That makes thirteen registration windows gone before the first Tamil Nadu board paper is written. For CBSE students, whose papers start earlier, the squeeze is tighter still.

Why institutions run this early

There is a reason for the rush, and it is mostly arithmetic. A route with several stages has to start early to finish on time. IIM Bangalore, for instance, runs a written test in November, interviews in January and offers in February. All of that happens before a single board result is published.

Ashoka works the same way: a first-round deadline in November, an assessment in early December and a decision in early February. Because each stage needs weeks, the application has to come first, and early. None of this is designed to catch families out. It simply means the calendar belongs to the institutions. The families who fare best are the ones who read it before it is read out to them.

August to November — the doors nobody mentions to PCM families

Law opens in August

The first window of the year belongs to law. CLAT, the Common Law Admission Test, normally opens in early August and closes at the end of October, with the examination in early December. It leads to the five-year integrated law programmes at the National Law Universities.

AILET is the one families most often miss, because NLU Delhi sits outside CLAT and runs its own test, usually closing in the second week of November for an examination in mid-December. SLAT follows, with a deadline in early December and papers before the New Year. All three ask for a Class 12 pass rather than a particular stream. I set out what the National Law Universities actually offer, and what the five-year degree leads to, in CLAT and the National Law Universities. A PCM student who argues well at the dinner table is therefore every bit as eligible as a humanities student. AILET, SLAT, Tamil Nadu’s marks-based route and the three-year LLB sit alongside CLAT, and I compare them in the guide to law entrance exams other than CLAT.

Design keeps its own clock

Design follows close behind, on a timetable of its own. NID’s Design Aptitude Test opens in September and closes at the end of November, with its preliminary paper in December. UCEED leads to the Bachelor of Design at several IITs. It opens in October for an examination in January, and it is open to students from science, commerce and humanities alike. NIFT now sits earlier than it used to: the national testing calendar puts its paper in the second week of January, which pulls its application into November and December. A PCM family that hears about these routes in October still has three live options. Hearing about them in March, the same family has none until the following year.

The universities that run rolling rounds

A different pattern runs alongside these, and it rewards families who start early. Ashoka, Krea and FLAME admit in rounds rather than through one national test, each with its own application, assessment and interview. Ashoka’s forms open in early October, and its first round closes in late November with a decision in early February. Krea’s portal opens in October for a first round that closes in early January. FLAME runs an early cycle closing in late November. Later rounds exist in every case, so nothing is lost for good. What the early round buys is a decision in hand before the board examinations begin, which is worth more than it sounds when March arrives.

A newer door in Bengaluru

One route is new enough that many families have not heard of it at all. IIM Bangalore now runs four-year residential undergraduate programmes: a BSc (Hons) in Economics and a BSc (Hons) in Data Sciences. The intake is deliberately small.

Applications open in mid-August and close in mid-October, and the institute’s own test follows in November. The conditions are specific. For the 2027 intake, a student needs Mathematics in both Class 11 and Class 12, and at least 60 per cent in Class 10 Mathematics. There is an age limit, too: 20 or younger on 1 August of the year of admission. So a Class 12 student with a mathematical mind and a curiosity about economies faces one of the earliest deadlines on the calendar, and very little time to discover the route exists.

Why these routes arrive by accident

Why do such routes reach PCM families so late? Partly because the talk around a science student in Chennai tends to run through JEE and NEET. The coaching industry that shapes much of that talk is built around those two examinations, and I have written about what its advertising leaves out. Law, design and the liberal arts sit outside it. They tend to arrive by accident — a cousin, a newspaper feature, a friend’s older sibling — rather than by plan. I map the wider field in the article on the entrance exams families overlook. Meanwhile, the practical fix is simple. In August of Class 12, ask which doors are open to your child regardless of stream. Then check each one’s window before September is out.

October to April — engineering, and the universities that test their own

JEE Main’s two sessions

Engineering’s main national window opens just as the design season peaks. JEE Main runs in two sessions. Registration for the first normally opens at the end of October and closes towards the end of November, and the examination follows in the second half of January. The second session then takes applications in February, for papers in early April.

A student registered for the first session can apply for the second without starting again. Even one who misses the first can still enter the second. That makes JEE Main one of the more forgiving deadlines of the year. I have walked through the decisions inside the form itself in JEE Main: What It Actually Gates, and the Decisions Inside the Form. On the calendar, though, treat November as the real deadline, because the first session is where most students make their first serious attempt.

The universities with tests of their own

A second engineering pattern runs on university calendars rather than national ones. VIT, SRM, Amrita and Manipal each conduct their own entrance test, and each opens applications between late September and the end of October for examinations the following spring. The windows are long and usually forgiving. The exams themselves are not always late, however: Amrita held its first phase at the end of January in the last cycle, in the middle of pre-board season. Each university sets its own phases, deadlines and eligibility, so the only safe course is to check the one your child is actually considering.

The Chennai change worth knowing about

One local calendar has moved, and it catches families who last looked a year ago. From the 2026–27 session, engineering at SSN is offered by the School of Engineering at Shiv Nadar University Chennai, and admission runs through the university’s own entrance test and interview rather than through Tamil Nadu’s single window.

The university’s brochure sets out the terms plainly. Its test runs in phases from April; applicants must clear 60 per cent in Class 10 and 75 per cent in Class 12, and a small number of places go to candidates with a JEE Main score at the 90th percentile or above. Students admitted up to 2025–26 are unaffected. Anyone planning around the older arrangement, though, is planning around a calendar that no longer exists.

BITSAT’s second chance

BITSAT keeps an unusually generous window. In the last cycle, registration opened in mid-December and closed in mid-March, for a first session in April. A second registration window in late April then led to a session at the end of May. BITS Pilani counts the better of a candidate’s two scores. The second sitting is therefore a genuine second chance, not a formality. Note the eligibility bar as well. The last cycle asked for 75 per cent aggregate in the relevant Class 12 subjects, with at least 60 per cent in each. Unlike JEE Main, then, BITSAT makes the board result matter directly.

December to April — the crowded quarter

A defence route that closes in December

One national route closes while most families are deep in revision. The National Defence Academy and Naval Academy examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission twice a year, and it is open to students who have passed or are appearing in Class 12. For the first 2027 cycle, the notification and application window falls in December 2026, and the written examination follows in April 2027. A second cycle runs in the second half of the year. Because the form arrives with no coaching-industry noise around it, it is among the quietest deadlines on this page, and among the easiest to miss.

A university form in the pre-board month

CUET UG is the common entrance for the central universities. In the last cycle, it took its applications in January, by which point 185 universities had adopted it for undergraduate admission. It reopened briefly in February and held its papers through May. Many families still associate January with pre-board tests rather than university forms. That is exactly why this one slips past. Whether CUET matters for your child depends on where they hope to study.

NEET’s single window, and a change of format

NEET UG has one window a year, and it is short. In the last cycle, registration opened in early February. After a brief extension, it closed in the second week of March, for an examination in early May. For a PCB student, the most important form of the year is therefore filled in just before the boards.

Two things make the 2027 cycle different. The May 2026 paper was cancelled over alleged irregularities and held again in June, which pushed everything downstream later. And the testing agency has since told the Supreme Court that NEET will move to computer-based testing from the next cycle, on the recommendation of a high-level expert committee. Plan around the official notice for your year, not around last year’s memory.

The form that sits on top of NEET

A NEET score is not always the whole application. Some colleges ask for a separate registration of their own, and missing it forfeits the seat, however strong the rank. Christian Medical College, Vellore is the clearest case close to home: its own application opened in late February in the last cycle and closed at the end of March, in addition to NEET and to Tamil Nadu’s counselling. Nothing in the NEET process reminds a family to do this. So the rule worth carrying is simple. For every college your child genuinely hopes for, check whether the entrance score is the application or merely part of it.

The research-science routes open quietly

This is also the quarter in which the research-science routes open and close with little noise. In the last cycle, the IISER Aptitude Test took applications from early March to mid-April, for a paper in early June. NEST, the entrance to NISER Bhubaneswar and UM-DAE CEBS Mumbai, ran from January to early April. Two mathematics institutions keep earlier deadlines still: the Indian Statistical Institute closed its applications in March, and the Chennai Mathematical Institute, on the city’s own southern edge, in early April for an examination in early May. IIIT Hyderabad belongs in this group as well, since it runs its own UGEE alongside the national routes, with applications from February to early April.

Management and architecture

Two more routes complete the quarter. IPMAT, IIM Indore’s entrance to its five-year Integrated Programme in Management, opened in early February in the last cycle and closed in mid-March, for a paper in early May; IIM Rohtak runs a separate test on a similar timetable. NATA, the aptitude test for the five-year B.Arch, opened its application in March and was held on Fridays and Saturdays from April to mid-June, with up to two attempts in that phase. A second, single-attempt window in August serves only seats still vacant after the main counselling, so it works as a safety net rather than a plan.

May to August — results, counselling and the money deadlines

Results arrive into a nearly finished year

By the time board results arrive in May, most of the entrance calendar has already run. For Tamil Nadu families, though, one major route begins only now. TNEA is the single-window admission to engineering colleges across the state, and it has no entrance examination at all. Its rank list is built from Class 12 marks. Registration opens in early May, and the rank list follows around the start of July. I have explained each stage in TNEA Counselling, Explained Step by Step. On the calendar, the point is simple: TNEA is the one engineering route where the board result is the whole story.

JEE Advanced, then JoSAA

The national engineering sequence closes in the same weeks. JEE Advanced is open only to the top two and a half lakh performers in JEE Main. It takes applications in late April and early May, for a paper in mid-May. Results come at the start of June. JoSAA, the joint counselling for the IITs, NITs, IIITs and other government-funded institutes, begins almost at once. It then runs through several rounds into July.

When two calendars overlap

Here is where money enters the calendar. University counselling does not wait for the national results. In the last cycle, SRM’s first counselling round asked for choices in the second week of May, weeks before JEE Advanced results came out. Shiv Nadar University Chennai states its terms even more sharply: full fees, including a compulsory hostel or transport charge, fall due within about seven days of the offer letter, with no extension. A family holding a university seat as insurance may therefore have to pay for it before knowing whether a better offer will come. Reading the refund terms belongs on the calendar as surely as any registration date.

Commerce keeps a gentler rhythm

Commerce families, by comparison, run on a far gentler clock. The chartered accountancy route begins with ICAI’s Foundation examination, now held three times a year: in January, May or June, and September. After Class 12, a student may sit it once registered with the institute for four months before the examination month. Consequently, missing one sitting means waiting a few months, not a year.

Which calendar does your college sit on?

The question this guide is really answering

You may be looking for a familiar name and not finding it. That is because this guide is organised by route rather than by college, and most colleges sit inside a route already described above. Knowing which one is the whole skill, so here are the common Chennai answers in one place.

The national and state routes, and who sits inside them

The NITs, the IIITs and the other government-funded institutes admit on JEE Main ranks through JoSAA, so no separate form exists; IIITDM Kancheepuram, closest to Chennai, is among them. IIIT Hyderabad is the exception, with its own UGEE, and IIIT Delhi uses JEE Main scores through a separate Delhi counselling. Anna University’s own colleges, including CEG and MIT Chromepet, and nearly every self-financing engineering college in the state, sit inside TNEA on Class 12 marks. SSN no longer does. Delhi University, BHU and the other central universities admit through CUET. Government and private medical colleges run on NEET, through all-India and Tamil Nadu counselling, with CMC Vellore adding an application of its own.

What a missed deadline really costs

Misses that cost very little

Now to the question underneath the title. Some misses cost almost nothing. JEE Main has a second session, BITSAT has a second registration window, and the rolling-round universities hold later rounds. The National Defence Academy examination runs twice a year, so a missed December form means waiting for the next cycle rather than a full year. ICAI offers the next Foundation sitting within months, while TNEA needs no entrance test at all. If your child has missed one of these, the right response is relief. After that, put the next window in the diary.

Misses that cost a year

Others cost a full year, because the route runs only once annually. CLAT, AILET, NID, UCEED, NIFT, CUET, NEET, IPMAT, the IISERs, NEST, CMI, ISI, UGEE and the IIM Bangalore programmes all belong here. Missing one does not close the route for good. Still, the next attempt means either a year out or starting a different course and trying again. That can be exactly the right decision, and I have written about The Gap Year Question with it in mind. It should simply be a decision your family makes. A date nobody noticed should never make it for you.

Misses the rules can make permanent

A few misses reach further, because some routes limit attempts or age. JEE Advanced can be taken at most twice, in consecutive years. A student who misses it in the year of Class 12 therefore has one chance left, not two. UCEED works on the same consecutive-years principle, and its score is valid for a single year. The IIM Bangalore programmes set an upper age limit, and the defence route sets a narrow date-of-birth band. For these, a year’s wait can quietly use up an attempt or close a window altogether. They are the deadlines worth circling twice.

Extensions are a kindness, not a plan

Finally, a word on extensions, because they are tempting to count on. In the last cycle alone, NEET, CUET, VITEEE, IPMAT, ISI, NEST and MET all extended or reopened a deadline. Welcome as that was, none of those extensions was announced in advance. Plan for the date printed on the notice. Treat any extra days as a gift, not part of the schedule.

A calendar you can act on this month

Class 11 is the planning year

If your child is in Class 11, or even Class 10, you already hold the advantage this guide is trying to hand every reader: time. Class 11 is when interests can be tested cheaply. Think of a design workshop in the holidays, a school debate, or a few weeks spent reading about how markets work. By August of Class 12, the list of routes worth registering for can then rest on evidence rather than guesswork. In my manifesto, I argued that a genuine strength shows itself in work a child returns to unasked. The calendar simply decides how early you need to start watching for it.

Register for the routes your child would welcome

Registering for everything, however, is not the answer. Each form costs money, and each examination costs a weekend. A teenager sitting nine entrance tests alongside the boards is carrying more than any calendar should ask. The better filter is the one in the Thrive Tip above. Register for the routes your child would be glad to be offered, and let the rest go deliberately. A short list built from what your child enjoys will serve them better than a long one assembled out of worry.

Keep the paperwork ready before it is asked for

Almost every form in this guide asks for the same small bundle: a recent photograph, a scanned signature and Class 10 certificates. Tamil Nadu families claiming a reservation will also need community and nativity certificates. These are worth having in hand well before any form asks. Gather everything in a single folder during the summer before Class 12. After that, every window that opens becomes a half-hour task rather than a scramble.

Trust the notice, not the forward

Lastly, read every date at its source. Each route in this guide publishes an official notice or information bulletin, and only those documents bind. WhatsApp forwards and exam-news sites help you notice that something has opened. Yet they can lag behind extensions, and occasionally carry last year’s figures forward. Worse, they rarely report the changes that matter most — a college leaving one admission system for another, or an examination changing its format. The table below links each route to its official page for exactly that reason.

The entrance exam calendar after Class 12, in one table

How this list was chosen, and what it is not

This guide lists calendars, not colleges. A route earns a place because its dates differ from everything else on the page, and an institution is named only where it defines a calendar or makes one concrete. Those names were chosen for reach, not for quality. A name here is not a recommendation, and an absence is not a warning; your child’s own shortlist should come from their strengths, not from this table. Whatever is on it, check the official page before you act.

Confirmed, expected, and how to read the rows

This is the only part of the guide that changes every year. Rows marked confirmed come from the conducting body’s own announcement for the 2026–27 cycle. Where a notice has not yet appeared, the row gives the expected month alongside the previous cycle’s actual dates, so you can see the pattern for yourself. The table is updated as each new notice arrives.

Route	Open to	2026–27 cycle	Status (previous cycle in brackets)
Board exams (reference): TN Class 12 / CBSE Class 12	—	Expected Feb–Mar 2027	Expected (2026: TN 2–26 Mar; CBSE from 17 Feb)
IIM Bangalore BSc (Hons) Economics / Data Sciences	Maths in Class 11 and 12; age limit applies	Applications 17 Aug–15 Oct 2026; test 15 Nov 2026 (tentative)	Confirmed — open
CLAT 2027 (National Law Universities)	Any stream	Registration 3 Aug–31 Oct 2026; exam 6 Dec 2026	Confirmed — open
UCEED 2027 (B.Des, IITs)	Any stream	Registration expected from 1 Oct 2026, closing late October with a late-fee window into early November; exam 17 Jan 2027	Exam confirmed; registration expected (2026: closed 31 Oct 2025 without late fee; exam 18 Jan 2026)
AILET 2027 (NLU Delhi)	Any stream	Registration 7 Aug–10 Nov 2026; exam 13 Dec 2026	Confirmed — open
Ashoka University	Any stream	Forms open 7 Oct 2026; rounds close 23 Nov 2026, 20 Jan, 14 Apr and 23 May 2027	Confirmed (the separate Maths Challenge round closed 15 Sep 2026)
NID DAT 2027 (B.Des)	Any stream	Applications 10 Sep–30 Nov 2026; prelims 20 Dec 2026	Confirmed — open
FLAME University	Any stream	Early cycle expected late Nov 2026; later cycles to Jun 2027	Expected (2026: early cycle closed 30 Nov 2025; cycles I–V to 21 Jun 2026)
JEE Main 2027, Session 1	PCM	Registration expected late Oct–late Nov 2026; exam 22–24 and 28–30 Jan 2027	Exam confirmed (NTA calendar, 16 Sep 2026); registration expected (2026: 31 Oct–27 Nov 2025)
SLAT 2027 (Symbiosis law schools)	Any stream	Registration 21 Aug–4 Dec 2026; exams 19 and 26 Dec 2026	Confirmed — open
NDA & NA (I) 2027 (UPSC)	Passed or appearing Class 12; age band applies	Notification and applications 2–22 Dec 2026; exam 11 Apr 2027	Confirmed (UPSC calendar, 20 May 2026)
Krea University	Any stream	Portal expected from Oct 2026; first round expected early Jan 2027	Expected (2026: portal 9 Oct 2025; round 1 closed 4 Jan 2026)
NIFT 2027	Any stream	Application expected Nov–Dec 2026; exam 10 Jan 2027	Exam confirmed (NTA calendar); application expected (2026: opened 8 Dec 2025; exam 8 Feb 2026)
CUET UG 2027	Any stream; subject choices matter	Expected Jan 2027	Expected (2026: 3–30 Jan, extended and reopened 23–26 Feb; exams 11–31 May)
MET 2027 (Manipal)	PCM or PCB	Expected from late Sep 2026	Expected (2026: opened 30 Sep 2025; phase 1 closed 23 Mar 2026 after extension; exams 13–14 Apr)
VITEEE 2027	PCM or PCB	Expected from late Oct 2026	Expected (2026: opened 24 Oct 2025; closed 12 Apr 2026 after extension; exam 28 Apr–3 May)
SRMJEEE 2027	Physics and Maths plus one listed subject	Expected from late Oct 2026	Expected (2026: opened 30 Oct 2025; phase 1 deadline 16 Apr; phases in Apr, Jun, Jul)
AEEE 2027 (Amrita)	PCM or PCB	Expected from late Oct 2026	Expected (2026: opened 29 Oct 2025; phase 1 exam 30 Jan–1 Feb 2026; phase 2 to late Apr)
BITSAT 2027	PCM or PCB with high aggregate	Expected mid-Dec 2026–mid-Mar 2027	Expected (2026: 15 Dec 2025–16 Mar 2026; session 2 registration 20 Apr–2 May)
Symbiosis SET 2027 (non-law UG)	Any stream	Expected Dec 2026–Apr 2027	Expected (2026: 12 Dec 2025–10 Apr 2026; exams 2 and 10 May)
NEET UG 2027	PCB	Expected Feb–Mar 2027; computer-based from this cycle	Expected (2026: 8 Feb–11 Mar; exam 3 May, re-held 21 Jun)
CMC Vellore (own application, on top of NEET)	PCB with NEET score	Expected Feb–Mar 2027	Expected (2026: 23 Feb–30 Mar; documents by 4 Apr)
ISI Admission Test	Strong mathematics	Expected Feb–Mar 2027	Expected (2026: 12 Feb–26 Mar after extension; exam 10 May)
IPMAT Indore	Any stream	Expected Feb–Mar 2027	Expected (2026: 2 Feb–17 Mar after extension; exam 4 May)
UGEE (IIIT Hyderabad)	PCM	Expected Feb–Apr 2027	Expected (2026: 11 Feb–5 Apr after extension; exam 2 May)
NEST 2027 (NISER, CEBS)	Science	Expected Jan–Apr 2027	Expected (2026: 5 Jan–8 Apr after extension; exam 6 Jun)
SNUCEE (Shiv Nadar University Chennai, incl. SSN School of Engineering)	PCM; 60% in Class 10 and 75% in Class 12	Expected Jan–May 2027	Expected (2026: phase deadlines 28 Mar, 2 and 4 Apr; exams from 11 Apr; interviews Apr–May)
CMI (BSc programmes)	Strong mathematics	Expected Mar–Apr 2027	Expected (2026: 2 Mar–4 Apr; exam 2 May)
IISER Aptitude Test	Science	Expected Mar–Apr 2027	Expected (2026: 5 Mar–13 Apr; exam 7 Jun)
NATA 2027 (B.Arch)	Physics and Maths in Class 12	Expected Mar–Jun 2027	Expected (2026: applications from 9 Mar; tests 4 Apr–13 Jun; vacant-seat phase 7–8 Aug)
JEE Advanced 2027	Top JEE Main performers	Expected late Apr–early May 2027	Expected (2026: 23 Apr–2 May; exam 17 May; results 1 Jun)
TNEA 2027	Tamil Nadu engineering, marks-based	Expected May–Jun 2027	Expected (2026: registration from 3 May; rank list 1 Jul)
JoSAA 2027	JEE Main and Advanced ranks	Expected from early Jun 2027	Expected (2026: from 2 Jun)
CA Foundation	Any stream	Three sittings a year: Jan, May/Jun, Sep	Standing rule: register four months before the exam month

The year belongs to your child

Back to Nila

Return, for a moment, to Nila and her cousin’s question in February. Nothing in her story required a genius, a coaching budget or a crystal ball. It required one conversation in August, one honest list of the routes she might love, and one evening spent looking up their windows. With those, NID might have been a form she filled in. Equally, it might have been a door she decided against with her eyes open. Either way, the choice would have been hers.

A door you chose not to open

That, in the end, is all an admissions calendar is for. It will not choose a future for your child, and it should not try. What it can do is make sure that every door your family leaves shut is one you looked at and chose to leave. None should be a door you walked past without seeing. So read the entrance exam calendar after Class 12 early, and read it together. Then let your child’s strengths, not the dates, decide which doors matter.