NEET: ‘Need 390 to get seat in government medical college’

For the ‘other category’ students who cracked the NEET exam last year, the cut off was 384. Stating that over 10,000 students came out successfully in the NEET exams as compared to last year, experts said that the cut off mark was therefore increased this year. This year, the cut off for backward caste is expected to be about 300 marks, while it would be a little over 240 marks for most backward class students.

City-based NEET expert J Kumar said that the cut off marks would be about 200 and 170 respectively for SC and ST candidates. “It was 295, 235, 191 and 161 marks for candidates belonging to Backward Castes, Most Backward Castes, Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes respectively,” he said. 

While the Tamil Nadu government was initially reluctant to grant MBBS and BDS admissions on the basis of NEET, it however followed the Supreme Court order that made the national level test mandatory for the medical aspirants.

Now, 15 per cent All India Quota seats in the state will be filled through Medical Counselling Committee counselling and the remaining 85 per cent through state counselling – but only with the Tamil Nadu State Board students. In addition, management quota seats, which is 65 per cent in private medical colleges and 50 per cent in non-minority institutions, would be filled by the state on the merit basis through single window counselling. Since Tamil Nadu has not performed well in the NEET this year too, the students in the state would face difficulty in landing All India Quota seats, added Kumar.

Alleging discrepancies in the statistics of the results that was published on Monday, members of Tech for All said that the number of students who reportedly passed their exams was far higher than the number of candidates who registered.  Stating that they compared the statistics that was provided by CBSE on May 4 with that which was published on June 4, a member of the organisation said, “Total registered candidates in India was 1,326,725. While 1.7 lakh students registered from Tamil Nadu, 1.20 lakh have reportedly wrote the exams. Besides, 35,000 candidates were issued hall tickets in Bihar, but 37,000 passed. There are grave discrepancies between the two documents, except the total number of applicants.” Stating that students from districts like Thoothukudi, Kanniyakumari and Tirunelveli were unable to check the answer key which was open from May 25 morning to May 27 evening, he said, “Many students approached the CBSE.  We have email evidence too. However, they did not receive any reply.”