AP PGCET Seats and Fees 2026: 37,475 Seats and What Each Seat Type Costs

Two official documents describe the 2026 AP PGCET seat pool, and they do not agree. The Instruction Booklet printed a tentative list in the spring; the CAP portal — the system that actually allotted seats on 22 September — carries a later and larger matrix that includes the new private-university seats. This guide prints both, then breaks the CAP matrix down by college type, seat type, test and fee. Every total below is our own sum from the official rows.

CAP data read 29 Sep 2026; qualified count reported by The Hans India, 30 May 2026.

Set the last two tiles side by side. On the reported 2026 figures, there were about two convener seats for every candidate who qualified (31,663 against 15,020 — our arithmetic). For most applicants the real question is not whether a seat exists but which college, which course and which seat type — and that is decided by rank, local status and the options you enter.

Private colleges hold the most sanctioned seats (16,061) but university colleges hold the most convener seats that carry no management share (13,723). Private universities are new to PGCET counselling in 2026: 696 seats, of which only 253 are convener seats. Their Category A (convener) share is 35% of intake against 70% in private colleges — so for the same sanctioned seat, a private university offers counselling half as much.

The courses with the most convener seats in the CAP matrix tell the same story from the other side: M.Sc. Organic Chemistry (PG127) alone has 3,918 convener seats — more than all of Commerce's test pool in the booklet — because nearly every private science college offers it.

Each CAP row carries a convener fee. The booklet says a candidate pays "the total fees payable per annum as fixed by the APHERMC" (the AP Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission); the CAP data itself does not say whether a figure is annual. The table groups rows by the college type and seat type the portal records and gives the median and the range. The last column is the number of convener seats and rows behind each median, so you can see how much each figure rests on.

The pattern is simple. University Regular seats are the cheapest (median Rs 12,915) and private and aided college seats sit at a flat Rs 29,500 for almost every course — that figure is the APHERMC fee most private rows carry. Payment and self-supporting seats in universities cost more, and the spread inside universities is enormous: from Rs 8,000 to Rs 2,34,200 on self-finance seats.

The fee field also moved this year. 397 CAP rows carry an old convener fee that differs from the current one; most are private colleges going from Rs 30,000 to Rs 29,500, and only five rows went up. If a college prospectus quotes Rs 30,000, it may be the old figure.

Seat type decides more than the fee — it decides whether the state pays it. The booklet sets out three rules. Candidates eligible for Reimbursement of Tuition Fee (RTF) admitted to Regular and Self-Finance seats in universities and their constituent or affiliated government colleges are exempted from paying tuition. Separately, under G.O.Ms.No.77 of 25-12-2020, post-matric scholarships for PG are confined to convener Regular seats in state universities and government colleges, so students in private aided or unaided colleges are not eligible for government schemes whatever the category or mode of admission. And self-supporting, payment and special seats are never eligible.

The practical point: a cheap-looking private seat at Rs 29,500 can cost a reimbursement-eligible student more than a university Regular seat that costs nothing out of pocket. When you order options, put the seat type next to the fee in your own list.

The booklet list also shows where the seats are. Of the booklet's pool, 20,480 seats are in the Andhra University area (the coastal districts), 12,187 in the SV University area (Rayalaseema and Nellore), 1,447 in state-wide institutions shared between the two, and 182 on rows the list gives no area. By seat type the booklet has 23,763 SF, 8,131 R, 1,424 SS and 978 PA seats; by college type 13,342 private, 13,097 university and 7,857 government. Because 85% of each course is reserved for local candidates of its own area, where the seats are matters as much as how many there are.