NIFT Admission – GD and PI Process and Guides

From the 2019 college prospectus, I’ve seen that the dates of Group Discussion/ Personal Interview have been shifted to the month of April. The process of GD &PI starts with assigning dates to the students and the student must be present on that day only. The location for this will be the Indian Social Institute, Delhi. The students are called in batches for a course and each batch is assigned a different time period for that day. On closing of gates, attendance would be taken, groups would be formed according to the roll number and then forwarded off to group discussion.

The situation is like this that there would be of 2-4 panel members and 10-15 students in a group. Each student will be handed out an instruction sheet regarding the rules and regulations of the group discussion and behind the page would be a brief explanation of the topic assigned for the interview. The topics are generally from textile, apparel and fashion background concerning the latest changes and happenings in this field. For technology students often the topics shifts to a greater technological aspect and students are expected to give their discussion from a logical point of view.

Last year for M. FTech in my group, we were given a topic on sustainable dyeing and we had to discuss the pros and cons related to it. Some of the other topics that were assigned for other groups were

• Self-healing fabrics,
• Fragrances in apparel,
• Technology and fabric,
• future of denim,
• wearable technology,
• smart textiles and devices

From the above list, we could see that the topics were generally based on present innovations and general awareness about the subject and this field. For other courses just try to keep your eyes open to the present changes, try to gather information from various apparel magazines and blogging websites and most important try to be confident with your answer. And if it happens that you don’t know about the topic given to you, don’t worry because with the topic there is a short description of it and try to analyze the points logically and you would have your answer. With the topics given, you will be given a time of 5 minutes for making points after which you would be given a time of 10 minutes for your discussions.

Finally, after the discussion time is over each member of the group will be given a minute or two for any extra point that they want to add. This marks the end of group discussion and panellist would expect a good communication skill, cooperation skills, analytical skills, subject knowledge and most important your attitude and confidence from the students.

Next comes Personal Interview (PI) in which you would be presented before a group of 4 interviewers and your marks will be assigned based on your answers. The interviewing panel will consist of four individual each from different field or background. To start off there will be someone from NIFT itself, then there will be an individual with subject knowledge, then there will be an individual from industry background and there will be a physiologist. Since NIFT welcomes student from a wide variety of background the questions asked are often very basic and general. From the questions, the panellist expects that the student must have a basic knowledge from his background field, after which some questions are asked on this apparel industry to know that if the students are aware of this industry or not.

Well, there is an obvious question that you can expect during the interview which is 

• why are interested in coming to this field? or
• what attracted you towards this field?

You better prepare with this answer. For postgraduate students questions based on the previous job experiences are often asked with a reason for the change in background etc. the physiologist wouldn’t be asking any questions but he would be observing you throughout the interview for confidence, mental presence, check if you are lying for the questions, nervousness etc. For suggestion get to know about this apparel industry, check your background subject knowledge, have proper reasons for your answers and try not to freeze to the questions.

The personal interview is the end of your final screening tests for NIFT.

If you have come to Delhi just for this then go visit some of the historical places like Humayun tomb, Qutub Minar, India Gate etc. which would be nearby. This would keep your mind off your interview performance and just have fun.

Wishing you good luck.