Applicants seeking admission for a Ph.D / Integrated Ph.D Programme in Physics or Theoretical Computer Science or Neuroscience in one of the Participating Institutes may appear for the Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST) at one of the Exam Centers.

Participating Institutes have their own eligibility criteria. Applicants who are expected to complete their final examinations by August of each year are also eligible to appear for the JEST exam of that year. Applicants must pay an application fee and register to appear for the exam.

Ph.D. Programme
Physics :

• M.Sc. in Physics or M.Sc. / M.E. / M.Tech. in related disciplines.
• M.Sc. in Mathematics / Applied Physics / Applied Mathematics / Optics and Photonics / Instrumentation / Electronics will also be considered at IIA.
• B.E. or B.Tech. will also be considered at IISc, IMSc, ICTS-TIFR, IUCAA, JNCASR, NCRA-TIFR, TIFR-TCIS, RRI, IISER Mohali, IISER Pune, IISER Thiruvananthapuram and SNBNCBS.
• Talented final year B.Sc. and first year M.Sc. in Physics / Electronics / Astronomy / Applied Mathematics students may also apply to be pre-selected for research scholarship at IUCAA.
• MSc in Physics, Engineering Physics or Applied Physics will also be considered at IPR. At TIFR, only B.Tech Eng. Phys. and M.Sc. Physics are eligible.

Theoretical Computer Science/Neuroscience:

• M.Sc./ M.E. / M.Tech. / M.C.A. in Computer Science and related disciplines, and should be interested in the mathematical aspects of computer science. Visit website of IMSc for further details. M.Sc (Physics/ Mathematics), B.E/ B.Tech/ M.C.A in Computer Science for Ph.D. in Neuroscience at NBRC.

Integrated M.Sc. / M.Tech - Ph.D Programme

• At HRI, IISER-Pune, ICTS-TIFR, SNBNCBS, NCRA-TIFR, and TIFR-TCIS candidates with a Bachelor's degree will also be considered for the integrated M.Sc., Ph.D. programme in Physics.
• At IMSc, graduates with Bachelor’s degree in science/ mathematics/ /statistics /computer science/information technology/Engineering will also be considered for admission in Physics and in Theoretical Computer Science, as part of an integrated Ph.D. programme. All candidates successful in the course work of this programme shall be awarded an M.Sc. degree.
• At SNBNCBS, graduates with B.Sc. (Physics) / B.E. / B.Tech. degree will be considered for the integrated Post-B.Sc.-Ph.D. programme in subject areas mentioned above.
• At IIA, graduates with B.Sc. (Physics / Mathematics) / B.E. / B.Tech. in Electrical / Instrumentation / Engineering Physics / Electronics and Communications / Computer Science and Engineering / Optics and Photonics will be considered.
• At NBRC, B.Sc. (Physics/ Mathematics) & B.E./ B.Techi (Computer Science) will be considered for integrated M.Sc-Ph.D in Neuroscience.

Integrated M.Tech - Ph.D. Programme at IIA

• Graduates with M.Sc. (Physics / Applied Physics) / Post-B.Sc. (Hons) in Optics and Optoelectronics / Radio Physics and Electronics / B.E. / B.Tech. degree in subjects mentioned above will be considered. Visit IIA website for details.

Integrated Ph.D. Programme at IISER, Thiruvananthapuram.

• Graduates with Bachelor’s degree in Physics/Technology/Engineering will be considered for the Int. Ph.D. programme in Physics.

Visit the individual institute pages to view the programmes and subject areas being offered.

JEST will be held at the locations indicated below.

• Applications for JEST- 2015 can be submitted ON-LINE ONLY.
• Last date of ON-LINE submission of applications is December 8, 2014.
• Before filling the ON-LINE application form, candidate is requested to read the following instructions carefully.

ON-LINE Application

To apply online, applicants must create an account using a valid email-id. This account will remain valid from the time of account creation till one month after the date of declaration of results, for that year. Email-ids are linked to the created account as well as to the application, and will be used for all communications with the applicants. Therefore, the email-id should be active and must not be changed during this period. To submit application online, applicants must login to the created account and complete the application form. After submission, an unique submission number will be sent to your email-id. Please save all the emails sent to you and the unique submission number must be quoted by the applicant for any communication with the JEST authority.

The steps for submission of ON-LINE application form are

• Register yourself before you login. It is assumed that you already have an email-id.
• To register, the candidate has to click on the "register to appear for the exam" link in the Homepage. You will receive an email with your account information after registering with a valid email-id. Follow the instructions given in the email for resetting your password and further login.
• Login to the JEST homepage with your username (your email-id) and password. Fill the form and save it, or, modify an already saved form. Press the "Submit Application" button ONLY when you have inserted and checked all the mandatory entries.
• Upload jpg files of your Passport size photo and scanned signature.
• Pay the application fee online using the State Bank of India i-collect facility. Please check the FAQ for details of the payment process.
• After ON-LINE submission of the application form and successful e-payment of the application fee, your submission procedure will be considered complete. NO modification will be allowed after this.

• While filling up the form, you will be asked to upload jpeg files of your passport size photograph and your signature. The size of the individual files should not exceed 100 Kilo bytes. Crop out the extra white portion from the background surrounding the image to retain clarity.
• Before uploading your photo and signature files, make sure you have given it a good name. File names should use alphabets, underscores, and numbers only. Special characters such as spaces, (, #, &, punctuation, etc., should not be used in filenames. If you use a logical naming system, like loginname_date_photo.jpg, loginname_date_sig.jpg then it will be printed without any errors.
• In case the jpeg file of your photo which has been taken with camera exceeds the limit, you should compress the file size using compression softwares available in the websites, such as http://jpeg-optimizer.com, http://www.imageoptimizer.net.
• Your signature can be scanned with a digital scanner, and saved as jpeg file for uploading. In case this file size produced by scanner also exceeds 100 kB limit, you can compress it using the same tools as explained above.
• Please make sure the image type is jpeg. For checking, right click and go to the properties of the file being uploaded.
• Dimension of the image files should be the following
• Minimum of 100 X 125 pixels or maximum of 240 x 300 pixels (width x height) for photo and 150 x 30 pixels (width x height) for signature
• Please check ALL the properties of these image files before uploading.

Application Fee

An Application Fee of Rs. 300 (Rs 150 for SC/ST applicants ONLY) is required to be paid along with the application which can be paid online using Debit/Credit cards and Net-banking. Payment by any other mode will NOT be accepted. Click Here for Available Payment Options.


Post-Submission of Application form

• On successful submission of ON-LINE application form you will receive an E-mail with following information from JEST Website.
• Application data after final submission containing Unique Submission Number and filled in data.
• Please save this e-mail for further correspondence with the JEST authority.
• If you do not receive the above-mentioned e-mail after submission of application form and the successful e-payment of the application fee, contact JEST authority.
• Admit card will be available in the JEST webpage after 15th of January, 2015. Bring a printout of the downloaded admit card and one of your photo-ids for entry into the examination centre. Admit cards will NOT be sent by post/email.

An Application Fee of Rs. 300/- (Rs. 150/- for SC/ST applicants) is required to be paid along with the application which can be paid online using the State Bank of India i-collect facility. Debit OR Credit cards and State Bank of India Net-banking options are permitted. No other payment mode will be accepted.

Other Contact Mode:

IISER Pune is the organising institution for JEST 2015. The co-ordinators can be reached at: jest@iiserpune.ac.in

(Please write to this email id ONLY if going through the JEST website including FAQ and/or raising a ticket on your query does not solve your problem. Depending of the volume of emails received, we might take a few days to respond to your individual emails.)