Alpine Group of Institutes News & Updates 2026: Notifications, Notice, Result

The GATE 2026 exam is being conducted on February 7, 8, 14, and 15, 2026. You must be able to sense the pressure! We spotted multiple reasons why GATE 2026 preparation feels different for engineering students this time. One of them is the sudden rise in competition! The total registrations for the GATE 2026 exams have crossed 10 lakh. This has made 2026 one of the most competitive years since 2014. Every year, more and more students seem to appear for the exam. But the seats in the best IITs, NITs, and PSUs remain limited. This clearly means that just a "decent" rank is not enough! You have to get great scores to get to the top.

All of this makes GATE 2026 exams feel more demanding, and you must be wondering: what exactly has changed, and how should you adjust your preparation?

Check Out GATE 2026 Exam Day Instructions

GATE XL Predicted Minimum Qualifying Cutoff Marks 2026: Candidates who have appeared for the GATE Life Science (XL) exam 2026 are often curious to know the expected cutoff marks before the result. For the same, the past two years’ trends of GATE XL cutoff marks out of 100 and 1000 have been analyzed. So that they can make an assumption regarding the expected cutoff marks for GATE XL 2026 can be done. Along with this, the candidates can also find out our CollegeDekho expert’s assumption on this. As per the analysis, the expected GATE XL cutoff 2026 for the general category candidates will be varied between 29 and 32 (out of 100). 

Are you someone who wants to sit for JEE Main 2026 Phase 2? Or someone who has already given Phase 1 and is looking for another shot at it? Nevertheless, tracking the dates for JEE Main 2026 Phase 2 is equally important in both scenarios. 

GATE XE Expected Minimum Passing Marks for 2026: It is anticipated that GATE XE Expected Minimum Passing Marks for 2026 may be slightly higher than they were the previous year. Experts predict that GATE XE 2026 cutoff for general candidates shall range between 35 and 37 marks, which is slightly higher than it was in the previous years. Cutoffs for SC/ST/PwD candidates may be around 23–25 marks, while the expected range for OBC/EWS candidates is 31–33 marks. Although the paper scored highly at the top, the general category cutoff in 2025 was 35.4 marks, OBC/EWS was 31.8, and SC/ST/PwD was 23.5. This indicates a competitive cutoff zone.

GATE IN Predicted Minimum Passing Marks 2026 Category-Wise: If you are preparing for the GATE 2026 exam in Instrumentation Engineering (IN), the qualifying cutoff is expected to increase slightly, based on an analysis by Collegedekho that considers statistics from 2024 and 2025. The anticipated cutoff marks for the General category are projected to be between 26 and 27 marks (out of 100) and 350 to 370 marks (out of 1000). In 2025, the qualifying cutoff for the Unreserved (UR) category was 25.6 marks, with a total score of 350, which was a decrease from 2024, when the cutoff was 32.7 marks (out of 100).