Aspects of the disclosure provide a method for determination of a transmission or reception beam format in a random access process. The method can include determining, at a local entity, the Tx beam format or the Rx beam format for communication between the local entity and a remote entity during the random access process between the local entity and the remote entity in a wireless communication system employing beamforming techniques according to historical operations and channel reciprocity availability. The method can further includes transmitting or receiving, at the local entity, a random access message exchanged between the local entity and the remote entity according to the determined Tx beam format or Rx beam format, respectively.