GATE 2027 in Kurnool: IISc Zone, Andhra's Three-Way Split and Institutes

Open the official exam-city page and look for the Andhra Pradesh rows. You will find three, one under each of three zones, and Kurnool sits in the shortest. Only two Andhra entries are in the IISc zone: Anantapur and Kurnool.

That surprises people here, because the organising institute for GATE 2027 is IIT Madras and most of our state's cities go to Madras or Kharagpur. For a Kurnool candidate, though, exam-city matters are handled by IISc in Bengaluru.

The entry is simply "Kurnool", with no split by area. GATE allots the actual centre, and you see its address only on the admit card. The list is tentative: GATE may add or remove a city, and may allot one outside your six choices. GATE 2027 is held only in India.

A small piece of local history the district administration records: Kurnool was the capital of Andhra State from 1 October 1953 to 1 November 1956. It is the district headquarters today.

The rule that decides everything: you pick six cities, and all six must come from the same zone. Andhra Pradesh has twenty entries, divided like this.

IISc zone (works with Kurnool)	IIT Madras zone	IIT Kharagpur zone
Kurnool	Nandyala, Kadapa	Vijayawada, Eluru
Anantapur	Tirupati, Chittoor, Nellore	Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam
	Guntur, Amaravati, Chirala-Bapatla, Ongole	Rajamahendravaram (Rajahmundry), Kakinada-Surampalem
		Bhimavaram, Tadepalligudem

Once Kurnool is on your form, only the first column and the rest of the IISc zone are open to you. A student who wants to write in Tirupati or Guntur has to build a full IIT Madras list instead, and one heading for Vijayawada or Visakhapatnam needs a full IIT Kharagpur list. The Tirupati, Guntur, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam pages explain those zones from their side.

The Kurnool district administration describes our boundaries plainly: Nandyal district to the east, Anantapur district to the south, Ballari district of Karnataka to the west, and the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers with Mahabubnagar district of Telangana to the north.

Set that against the exam-city list and you get the trap. Nandyala, the neighbouring district's entry, is in the IIT Madras zone. So is Kadapa further south-east. Many of us have family or a college in Nandyal, and it feels like the natural second choice. It is not allowed alongside Kurnool.

The other three directions are friendlier. Anantapur is IISc zone. Ballari, across the state border, is IISc zone too, because all of Karnataka is. Mahabubnagar has no entry on the list, but Hyderabad and Nalgonda, the two IISc-zone entries in Telangana, are both valid partners for Kurnool.

Start with where you will be in February, then fill in places you could reach early on an exam morning. A list for a student living in Kurnool:

1. Kurnool
2. Anantapur
3. Ballari
4. Hyderabad
5. Bengaluru North
6. Bengaluru South

Students studying in Hyderabad but from Kurnool can swap the order and put Hyderabad first. Watch Telangana carefully: only Hyderabad and Nalgonda are IISc zone. Warangal, Karimnagar, Khammam, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Kodad and Kothagudem are all IIT Madras, and the Warangal page explains that side. If you are in Bengaluru for an internship, the Bengaluru page covers the two Bengaluru entries, and Davanagere and Tumakuru are other Karnataka options. North Karnataka has Hubballi/Dharwad, described on the Hubballi-Dharwad page.

If you registered already, your six cities are on the form. The official dates page lists the application data correction window, on candidate request and with a fee, as TBA.

Questions about the Kurnool exam city go to the IISc GATE office:

• IISc, Bengaluru-560 012: helpdesk.gate@iisc.ac.in, 080-22932644, 080-22932392, 080-22933333

Application questions go to the organising institute, IIT Madras, at helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in or 044-22578200. Write from your registered email ID and quote your enrolment ID.

The exams run over three weekends: 6 and 7 February, 13 and 14 February, and 20 and 21 February 2027. The city allotment notification is due on 4 January 2027, the admit card date is TBA, and results are due on 19 March 2027.

When the admit card arrives, locate the centre and plan how you will get there from where you sleep the night before. Centres are not always in the part of town you know. If you are allotted Hyderabad, Bengaluru or Ballari, travel the previous day. For two papers, the official two-paper page says the second centre may differ but will be in the same city. Carry the printed admit card and the original photo ID you gave in your application, and follow the admit card's own list of what you may take in.

IIITDM Kurnool is in our own city; its address is Jagannathagattu Hill, Kurnool. Within Andhra Pradesh, IIT Tirupati, NIT Andhra Pradesh and IIIT Sri City also have GATEiit pages. Many Kurnool students look towards Hyderabad as well, where IIT Hyderabad, IIIT Hyderabad and University of Hyderabad are, and to IISc Bengaluru. Each page explains that institute's GATE routes for DA and CSE candidates. The full list is on /institutes.

Keep the two choices separate in your head. The exam city has no bearing on admission anywhere, so writing in Kurnool does nothing for IIITDM Kurnool, and writing in Bengaluru does not count against you.

GATEiit is an online site with no centre or office in Kurnool or any other city. Everything on it is free to use from home or a hostel.

Decide your paper first. GATE DA is Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, and GATE CSE is Computer Science and Information Technology; each page carries the syllabus. DA and CS are an allowed two-paper pair in GATE 2027.

Then work through previous papers on /pyq and topic sets on /practice, using the GATE DA 2027 preparation guide or the GATE CSE 2027 preparation guide as your plan. The other guides go deep on single topics, and the WhatsApp group linked from the DA or CSE paper page is where aspirants discuss questions.

Every exam day is a Saturday or Sunday, so keep weekend mornings for full timed mocks. The GATE 2027 page and the exam-city overview give the national picture.