New Delhi | At least 168 universities have opted for the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admission to undergraduate programmes so far, up from 90 universities last year, according to officials.

The deadline for application, which is March 12, is also likely to be extended as more universities are expected to select the test for admissions.

The 168 universities include 44 central universities and 31 state universities such as Barkatullah University, Bhopal, Dr B R Ambedkar School of Economics, Karnataka, Cotton University, Guwahati, and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi.

"There are 27 deemed universities which will admit students based on CUET scores for their undergraduate programmes. Sixty-six private universities too are participating in the common entrance test this year which include Bennett University, Uttar Pradesh, NIIT University, Rajasthan, and UPES, Dehradun," a senior official said.

The exam is scheduled to be conducted from May 21-31.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) in March last year announced that undergraduate admissions will be conducted in all central universities through a common entrance test and not on the basis of Class 12 marks.

The undergraduate (UG) admission process in universities will be completed by July 2023 and the new academic session can begin on August 1.

The debut edition of the CUET-UG was conducted in July last year and was marred by glitches, prompting the National Testing Agency (NTA) to cancel the exam at multiple centres. While several students were informed about cancellation a night before the exam, many of them were turned away from centres.

UGC chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar had then said the exam at certain centres have been cancelled following reports of "sabotage".

With 14.9 lakh registrations, the CUET, the common gateway for undergraduate admissions in all central universities, is now the second biggest entrance exam in the country, surpassing the JEE-Main's average registration of nine lakh.

The NEET-UG is the biggest entrance test in India with an average of 18 lakh registrations. While JEE-Mains is a Computer Based Test (CBT) conducted twice a year, the NEET is conducted in pen and paper mode.

There were 21,159 candidates who scored 100 percentile in CUET-UG 2022 of which 12,799 were women. There were 12 candidates who scored 100 percentile in five subjects. English has the highest number of 100 percentile scorers with 8,236 candidates, followed by political science with 2,065 candidates, and business studies with 1,669 candidates.