NATA 2018 Application Dates extended till March 30

NEW DELHI, MARCH 1: Council of Architecture has extended the application dates of NATA 2018 to March 30. The application portal was scheduled to close on March 2. Candidates may note that the application form is online and has been available since January 18. The dates for the download of the NATA admit card have also seen a change from April 4 to April 16.

NATA is the entrance exam conducted by COA for admissions to the 5 year Bachelor’s in Architecture programmes offered by many institutes and universities across the country. Most states also use the NATA scores for the common counselling held by them for the B.Arch programmes offered by the institutes in the respective states.

The NATA application process comprises of two stages. Stage 1 is the registration stage where candidates have to fill in their Name, Gender, Email ID and Mobile number. Candidates can also use their Twitter, Google or Facebook accounts to register and log in.

Stage 2 is when candidates have to login and enter their personal, academic as well as their address details. They have to upload the photograph, signature as per specifications. SC/ST candidates must also upload their community certificate. After submission, candidates must pay the application fee of Rs 1800 for Gen/OBC and Rs 1500 for SC/ST candidates online only. If the payment is successful, a confirmation page is generated which contain the NATA application number and the transaction number.

Candidates need not send any documents to the COA office. They must however take a printout of the confirmation page and keep it safe to be submitted during counselling.

While the extension of the NATA application dates brings a sigh of relief to the students, it is also a fact that the application process has been difficult for many students and hence this feeling of relief amongst the students. TCS ION has been given charge of the application process this year and from the start it has been anything but smooth. The Aadhaar card is mandatory but no explanation was given to students from Assam, Meghalaya and Jammu & Kashmir who don’t possess an Aadhaar card. A solution was however provided after persistent efforts and students from these states were asked to fill in zeroes instead of the numbers. Similarly, students from abroad who were clueless about the pin code to put in the address section were also told to enter zeroes instead.

The major problem seems to be in the payment area with students finding the website unresponsive leaving them unable to make the payment. Solutions from the helpline have ranged from clearing the cache, history of the browser, using a new browser to filling in a fresh application with a new email ID. Frantic students who have been mailing or calling to find out solutions can now find relief that they have some more time to make the payment. The new dates should provide a bit more time to all these students to resolve the problems and successfully fill the application.

NATA 2018 will be held on April 29 from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm. The exam has two parts namely Part A which is online as it has Maths and general aptitude while part B comprises of drawing and hence it is offline