NEET UG 2021: In contrast to 2019, students with lower NEET-UG scores were admitted to top central medical institutions that are not INIs in 2020.
NEW DELHI: Since 2017, the NEET (UG), or National Eligibility and Entrance Test-Undergraduate, has become the only entrance test for medical college admissions in India. Since 2019, the National Testing Agency has been administering the NEET, which results in scores, an all-India rank (AIR), and state-by-state rankings.
Top-rank holders usually attend public institutions, although central medical schools that are not designated Institutions of National Importance (INI) admitted students at considerably lower rankings in 2020 than they did in 2019. Many of the top rankers may have gone to INIs, such as the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), which began accepting MBBS students via NEET in 2020.
In addition, each state institution “surrenders” 15% of its seats to the all-India quota (AIQ). The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) of the Directorate General of Health Services is in charge of AIQ counselling (the process of assigning a seat to a student). Each state has its own counselling authority for the 85 percent of state seats. NEET 2021 is planned for September 12, 2021, and will be held across the country by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
NEET UG: AIQ cut-off ranks
MCC is in charge of assignment of seats for these centrally administered institutions, and it does so for 100 percent of the seats. The distribution of seats is done without the involvement of a state counselling group. Over the last three years, the top-ranked medical colleges at central universities have admitted students in the order shown below. AIIMS and JIPMER were excluded since they just joined NEET in 2020, while the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Dr RML Hospital in New Delhi were only founded in 2019. There are no reservations at Aligarh Muslim University’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College. All of the rankings shown below are from the second round. After that, the MCC usually organises a “mop up round” for select colleges.
| Unreserved Seats | |||
| College | Closing Ranks | ||
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi | 62 | 32 | 90 |
| Vardhman Mahavir Medical College And Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi | 116 | 157 | 163 |
| University College Of Medical Sciences, New Delhi | 183 | 171 | 324 |
| Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi | 362 | 489 | 571 |
| Institute Of Medical Sciences, Bhu, Varanasi | 761 | 669 | 970 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Amu, Aligarh (Amu Open) | 3550 | 3518 | 4667 |
The NEET UG ranks at which applicants from Scheduled Castes were denied admission are shown below (SC). SC applicants are given 15% of the seats in the all-India quota.
| For Scheduled Castes (SC) | |||
| College | Closing Ranks | ||
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi | 3103 | 896 | 1475 |
| Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi | 5381 | 5617 | 2582 |
| University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi | 4153 | 3231 | 3207 |
| Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi | 5908 | 5941 | 13646 |
| Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi | 17807 | 15572 | 19874 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU, Aligarh (AMU Open) | — | — | — |
A total of 7.5 percent of seats in the AIQ are designated for Scheduled Tribes candidates (ST). Before the mop-up phase in NEET counselling, these were the ranks at which ST candidates’ admission closed in 2020.
| For Scheduled Tribes (ST) | |||
| College | Closing Ranks | ||
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi | 1792 | 3494 | 2334 |
| Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi | 6327 | 6010 | 10515 |
| University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi | 13807 | 9012 | 11712 |
| Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi | 28692 | 12223 | 19752 |
| Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi | 29115 | 32203 | 32574 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU, Aligarh (AMU Open) | — | — | — |
A total of 27% of seats in the all-India quota are allocated for the Other Backward Classes. These were the NEET scores at which this set of candidates’ MBBS admissions were closed before the mop-up round.
| For Other Backward Classes (OBC) | |||
| College | Closing Ranks | ||
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | |
| Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi | 210 | 148 | 307 |
| Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi | 417 | 357 | 430 |
| University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi | 402 | 374 | 533 |
| Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi | 837 | 818 | 1122 |
| Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi | 1118 | 1097 | 1987 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU, Aligarh (AMU Open) | — | — | — |
NEET Cut-off Scores: 2016-2020
The cut-off mark is the lowest score at which a student passes the NEET, which is decided by the applicants’ overall performance. It changes from year to year. Because the 10% EWS reservation was implemented in 2019, there is only one year of NEET cut-off scores for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category. Since NEET was largely implemented in 2016, the cut-off grades for different categories of candidates have altered as shown below.
| Cut-off marks by category | |||||
| Category | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
| Unreserved (UR) | 685-145 | 697-131 | 691-119 | 701-134 | 720-147 |
| Other Backward Class (OBC) | 678-118 | 130-107 | 118-96 | 133-107 | 146-113 |
| Scheduled Caste (SC) | 595-118 | 130-107 | 118-96 | 133-107 | 146-113 |
| Scheduled Tribe (ST) | 599-118 | 130-107 | 118-96 | 133-107 | 146-113 |
| Economically Weaker Section (EWS) | — | — | — | — | 146-129 |
| UR-PH | 474-131 | 130-118 | 118-107 | 133-120 | 146-129 |
| OBC-PH | 510-118 | 130-107 | 106-96 | 119-107 | 128-113 |
| SC-PH | 415-118 | 130-107 | 106-96 | 119-107 | 128-113 |
| ST-PH | 339-118 | 130-107 | 106-96 | 119-107 | 128-113 |
| EWS-PH | — | — | — | — | 128-113 |