Chandigarh, September 19: Panjab University (PU) has advanced the schedule for its undergraduate entrance exams, moving them from the summer to the end of December. The decision affects aspirants of law, hotel management, tourism, and sciences, who will now face the tests several months earlier than before.
According to the university’s advertisement, the PU Common Entrance Test (PU-CET) for undergraduate courses will be held on December 28, followed by the five-year law entrance exam on January 4 and the Panjab University Tourism and Hospitality Aptitude Test (PUTHAT) on January 9. Traditionally, the university conducted these exams in April and May, after Class 12 students had completed their board exams and received their results.
Explaining the change, PU controller of examinations Jagat Bhushan said the move aligns PU with national and private universities. “The exams have been scheduled along lines of other private universities of the region and for national exams like the Common Law Entrance Test (CLAT). Students will anyway prepare for this, and the schedule gets overwhelmed later with exams like JEE and NEET also scheduled simultaneously,” he noted.
Bhushan added that holding exams during winter break will give aspirants time to focus before pre-board tests. However, students and coaching centres expressed concern that the shift will leave less room for preparation. “When the CLAT exam was shifted to December in 2021, we got many students who wanted to sit for it after the boards, but we had to tell them they wasted their chance,” said Megha Sharma, director of Surya Law Academy. “We anticipate that students, especially from rural areas of Punjab and Haryana, could face the same problem for the PU law entrance exam.”
Calling the five-year PU law entrance the most important law exam in the region, Sharma said crash courses usually help bridge the gap since the syllabus is not directly linked with NCERT. “We don’t understand how students will prepare this year as they also have to prepare for their pre-board examinations. There won’t be enough time for tuition as students are usually taking coaching for their board subjects at this time,” she added.
Student leaders have also voiced reservations. PU Campus Students Council president Gaurav Veer Sohal, who had himself appeared for the law entrance after completing board exams, said the timing could make the test more difficult. “I will speak to the students of University Institute of Legal Studies (UILS) to draw up a list of pros and cons. If students face undue difficulty, we will demand that the system be rolled back to the previous year’s system,” Sohal remarked.
For the 2025 session, PU had conducted entrance exams in April and May, with the admission process continuing through the summer. This time, the accelerated schedule is expected to reshape how thousands of aspirants in the region prepare for their higher education.
