The National Institute of Design (NID) concluded its entrance test called Design Aptitude Test  (DAT) on Sunday. The institute not only allowed students, who were earlier rejected, to appear in the test but also allotted extra time to students who were late.

While DAT for the undergraduate (UG) programme was held on Saturday, the entrance test concluded on Sunday after tests for the post-graduate (PG) programmes were conducted.

A large number of students who applied for two PG programmes this year had only submitted one set of documents. As a result of this procedural lapse, the institute denied permission to these students to appear in more than one discipline. On Sunday, however, the institute authorities softened their stand. NID officials called up the 'rejected' applicants and informed them that they could appear in the tests.

"I was pleasantly surprised when the institute called me up to inform that I can appear in the entrance test for the discipline of Transportation and Automobile Design as well," said Vivek Chondagar, one of the candidates applying for the PG programmes at NID. The student had applied for Product Design as well as Transportation and Automobile Design, but was rejected from appearing in the test for the second discipline as he had submitted only one set of documents.

There were around 20 such candidates at the LD engineering college, which was one of the 11 centers where the test was held. Some of the students who did not arrive on the specified time to appear in the test were allotted extra time of up to half an hour.

Talking about the special arrangement, registrar of NID, Vijaya Deshmukh, said, "Out of the many students who applied for two disciplines, we had rejected a total of around 100 students from across the country as they submitted only a single set of documents. We, however, made the arrangements for them to take the test later on as we did not want these students to miss the opportunity."

While the UG programme received around 5,000 applicants, the number was 3,000 for the PG programme this year. In the Ahmedabad centre, 750 candidates for the UG programme and 450 students for the PG programme appeared for the test.