Xavier Aptitude Test or XAT is a common entrance exam conducted by XLRI, Jamshedpur for admission to MBA/PGDM programmes. XAT is conducted annually and nearly 1 lakh candidates appear in it every year. Apart from XLRI and 10 other XAMI member colleges, 250 participating B-schools accept XAT scores for admission to their post-graduate management programmes such as MBA, PGDM and Executive MBA. According to Shiksha, over 800 MBA colleges across India accept XAT score for admission.

Key Aspects of XAT exam:

• Candidates have to attempt 95 Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) from Decision Making, Verbal & Logical Ability, Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation and General Knowledge.
• There will be no Essay Writing or subjective type questions in XAT 2026.
• XAT is a high difficulty level exam and thus requires long term preparation of atleast 6-9 months.
• Preparation for XAT without mock tests is incomplete. So, candidates must practice a good number of XAT mock tests of various difficulty levels.
• XAT cut offs for XLRI’s PGDM-BM programme are usually around 95 percentile for male candidates and 92 percentile for female candidates.

Latest Updates:

• XAT 2026 registration cum application started on July 10, apply now
• XAT 2026 registration started, what’s new in XAT exam