GPAT
National entrance for MPharm admission across India. Qualifying also earns the AICTE monthly stipend during MPharm and is a prerequisite for NIPER JEE, the gateway to the National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research.
Eligibility
A four-year BPharm degree, completed or in the final year, is required; holders of BTech in pharmaceutical technology are not eligible. There is no age limit and no restriction on the number of attempts. The GPAT score is valid for three years.
Age limit: No age limit
Exam pattern
A single computer-based paper of 3 hours with 125 multiple-choice questions worth 4 marks each, for a total of 500 marks. One mark is deducted for every wrong answer. The exam runs in one nationwide session under NBEMS. Results are declared as percentile with an All India Rank, and the scorecard is valid for three years.
Syllabus at a glance
The full BPharm curriculum. Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, Pharmaceutical Chemistry (organic, inorganic, medicinal and analysis), Pharmacology and Pharmacognosy carry the bulk of the weight, alongside Biochemistry, Microbiology, Biotechnology, Clinical Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Jurisprudence and dispensing/hospital pharmacy.
Upcoming dates
| Event | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| GPAT 2027 notification and application window | Dec 2026 – Jan 2027 | expected |
| Admit card release | Feb–March 2027 | expected |
| Exam | Feb–March 2027 (the 2026 edition was held on 7 March) | expected |
| Result | April 2027 | expected |
Expected dates follow the usual calendar; confirm on the official notification before planning.
Free prep material
Standard books
- Essentials of Medical Pharmacology — K.D. Tripathi
- Aulton's Pharmaceutics: The Design and Manufacture of Medicines — Michael E. Aulton
- Pharmacognosy — C.K. Kokate, A.P. Purohit & S.B. Gokhale
- Wilson and Gisvold's Textbook of Organic Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry — Beale & Block
- GPAT Cracker — Sanjar Alam
How toppers play it
- Pharmacology, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacognosy dominate the paper — allocate revision time in that order.
- With −1 per wrong answer across 125 questions, a disciplined 105–115 confident attempts usually beats attempting everything.
- Direct fact-recall is common: drill KD Tripathi's drug classifications and Kokate's crude-drug sources until they are instant.
- Solve both NTA-era (2019–2023) and NBEMS-era papers — the MCQ pattern has stayed stable across the handover.
- Qualifying brings the AICTE MPharm stipend and NIPER JEE eligibility, so aim well above the cutoff, not at it.