GATE 2027 in Shillong: Meghalaya's Exam City, Zone Rules and Institutes

Open the official exam-city list and look under Meghalaya: it has a single name, "Shillong". The state has no second centre, so a student from anywhere in Meghalaya who wants to write in the state lists Shillong.

Shillong is the headquarters of East Khasi Hills district as well as the state capital, according to the district administration. That matters for one reason. NIT Meghalaya is in the same district but not in Shillong itself, which we come to below.

The form rules, straight from the list page:

• You choose six cities, and all six must come from one zone.
• The list is tentative, and GATE may add or remove a city.
• GATE may allot you a city outside your six if it has to.
• GATE 2027 is held only in India.

The IIT Guwahati zone is large. Besides Meghalaya it covers all five Assam cities (Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat, Silchar, Tezpur), Imphal and Thoubal in Manipur, Aizawl, Agartala, Dimapur-Kohima, Gangtok, and Naharlagun and Papum pare in Arunachal Pradesh. It also reaches Bihar, Dhanbad and Bokaro Steel City in Jharkhand, and five West Bengal cities.

A plain order for a Shillong student:

1. Shillong
2. Guwahati
3. Silchar
4. Tezpur
5. Jorhat
6. Dimapur-Kohima, Imphal or Agartala, whichever has family you can stay with

Guwahati is the natural second choice. The East Khasi Hills how-to-reach page says National Highway 40 links the two cities, that state transport buses run both ways from 6 am to 5 pm daily, and that a bus takes about three hours with a stop at Nongpoh. If you have relatives in Guwahati, you could go down the evening before.

Listing Shillong first does not promise you Shillong. Fill the rest only with places you would actually travel to in February.

Shillong colleges draw students from across the region and beyond. Before you fill the form, decide where you will be in February, because your home city may sit in another zone.

Your home city	Zone	Can it share a form with Shillong?
Guwahati, Silchar, Imphal, Aizawl, Agartala, Gangtok	IIT Guwahati	Yes
Siliguri, Kalyani, Durgapur, Asansol, Burdwan	IIT Guwahati	Yes
Patna, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur, Purnea, Dhanbad, Bokaro Steel City	IIT Guwahati	Yes
Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Kharagpur-Midnapur	IIT Kharagpur	No
Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneswar	IIT Kharagpur	No

So a student from north Bengal or Bihar can mix Shillong with home. A student from Kolkata cannot. Pick one zone and build all six choices inside it; the Kolkata page and the Patna page set out those lists.

Registration has closed. Any change to your cities now depends on the data correction window, which the official dates page still shows as TBA.

Questions about exam cities go to the zone's coordinating institute: IIT Guwahati, Guwahati 781 039, gate@iitg.ac.in, 0361-2582751. Write from your registered email and quote your enrolment ID.

Portal and payment problems go to IIT Madras, which organises GATE 2027: helpdesk@gate.iitm.ac.in, 044-22578200.

What	When
Fixing scrutiny defects (no fee)	closes 30 November 2026
Data correction window (with fee)	TBA
City allotment notification	4 January 2027
Admit card	TBA
Exams	6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21 February 2027
Results	19 March 2027

Every exam date is a Saturday or a Sunday. The official page adds that all dates may change.

The admit card gives the exact centre and reporting time, and a Shillong centre need not be near your hostel. Find it on a map the day the admit card comes out, and travel the route once if you can.

If you are allotted Shillong from outside, the district's how-to-reach page names Guwahati as the nearest railway station, 104 km away, and puts Guwahati airport about 128 km from Shillong. It says government buses use the stand at Police Bazar, private buses leave from Polo Grounds, and shared Sumos and taxis also start from Police Bazar, taking about two hours from Guwahati. Arrive the day before.

If you write DA and CS together, which GATE 2027 allows, your second paper may be at a different centre in the same city, so read both sessions on the admit card. Carry the printed admit card, the original photo ID you entered on the form and whatever else the admit card asks for. Its rules on what you may carry in are the ones that count.

NIT Meghalaya is the GATE institute closest to Shillong, but its campus is not in the city. Its how to reach page gives the address as Saitsohpen, Sohra, East Khasi Hills District, Meghalaya 793108, and suggests a taxi to Shillong and then about two hours by taxi on to Sohra. If you are thinking of an M.Tech there, plan for life at Sohra, not in Shillong. The GATEiit page explains its GATE routes for DA and CS candidates.

Down the highway, IIT Guwahati is the other name most of us look at. NIT Silchar, NIT Manipur and NIT Agartala are in the same region, and the full list is on /institutes.

Your exam city has no link to admission. Writing GATE in Shillong gives no edge at NIT Meghalaya, and writing it in Guwahati costs you nothing at either institute.

GATEiit is a free website. It has no centre or office in Shillong or anywhere else.

Start on your paper's page, GATE DA or GATE CSE, for the syllabus and the WhatsApp group for that paper. Solve past papers on /pyq, then topic sets on /practice. The GATE DA 2027 guide and the GATE CSE 2027 guide lay out a plan, and /guides has the rest.

With every paper on a weekend, sit your full mocks on Saturday and Sunday mornings to get used to the timing. For the national picture, see GATE 2027, the exam-city overview and our Guwahati and Imphal pages.