NEET – A Gateway for Medical Seats

Medical aspirants take up the NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) exam with the desire to seek medical, dental or AYUSH seats across various institutes. It is a fair, transparent and standardised exam whose score can also be used for many other medical-related programmes. The NEET scores are accepted by most private institutions across India for their admissions. Furthermore, it has scrapped various other medical entrance exams in India, like the ones conducted by AIIMS, CMC and JIPMER. Let us discuss the NEET exam and the further admission procedures in this article in detail.

What is NEET?

NEET is a single national-level entrance exam for medical seats organised by the National Testing Agency (NTA). It was formerly known as the All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) and was conducted by the CBSE. The NEET UG is for aspirants who aim to pursue undergraduate dental (BDS), medical (MBBS) and AYUSH courses (BUMS, BAMS and BHMS) in government as well as private colleges across the country. NTA has been the nodal statutory agency that has conducted this exam since 2019. Likewise, NBE (National Board of Examinations) conducts NEET (PG) for postgraduate medical courses like MS and MD.

Admission Procedure

Candidates who cleared the qualifying cut-offs will move further to the counselling process. NTA creates an all India merit list of such qualified candidates based on their score and rank. This rank list is provided to the admission authorities who invite applications for the counselling process. Thus, admissions into various UG courses are solely based on this merit list. The counselling process decides the admission of candidates into various institutes. This counselling is being conducted by the Medical Council of India (MCC). The following are some key points to be noted in the counselling process.

• First, eligible candidates must register for the process online. After which, candidates can register for their desired college and course and lock their preference. To proceed further, they have to pay a nominal fee and report to the allotted college for document verification.
• Candidates who are not satisfied with this can proceed further to round 2 of counselling. Also, once seats are accepted, they cannot be surrendered or declined.
• The vacant seats left after two rounds of counselling get filled through a mop-up round.
• Here, 15% of seats are reserved under the All India Quota (AIQ), while the remaining 85% comes under the state quota. Also, the number of institutes taking part in the AIQ counselling has considerably increased this year.
• The state government authorities will release a separate merit list, seat allotment list and counselling dates. They conduct counselling for admissions in government as well as private medical institutes.

Some Top Medical Institutes

Various medical institutes in India come together to offer around a lakh of medical/dental/AYUSH seats every year. Every NEET aspirant should be aware of the top medical colleges in India before proceeding with the admission process. Remember that candidates can get placed anywhere in India through the counselling process. Some of the notable institutes are given below for reference.

Medical institutes

Dental institutes

AYUSH institutes

No worries if candidates cannot get their way through desired dental, AYUSH or medical courses. There are some equally interesting pharmaceutical, nursing and clinical research courses available.