NEET UG 2025: Over 12 lakh candidates qualified for MBBS admission
New Delhi: A total of 12,36,531 candidates have qualified the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET UG) 2025, the results for which was declared by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Saturday, marking a 6% decrease from last year, when 13,15,853 aspirants cleared the national-level test for admission to undergraduate medical and para-medical courses.
A total of 5,14,063 male, 7,22,462 female and 6 transgenders are among the over 12 lakh qualified candidates. There are 9 male and only one female candidate among the top 10 rank holders and all of them belong to the general category.
None of the 22,09,318 candidates who appeared for NEET-UG 2025 — held in pen-and-paper mode in a single shift on May 4 across 5,468 centres in 552 cities in India and 14 abroad — scored a perfect 720 marks. This marks a change from last year, when a record-breaking 17 candidates secured All India Rank (AIR) 1 with full marks (720) in the re-revised results, down from 67 in the first iteration which caused major controversy reaching the matter to Supreme Court and later paved the way for reforms in NNTA by a government appointed panel.
Following reports of malpractices in NEET-UG 2024, which reached the Supreme Court, the Centre formed a seven-member panel led by former ISRO chairman Dr K Radhakrishnan in June 2024 to reform the NTA. The panel's report, submitted on October 21 last year, recommended that from 2025, the NTA will focus solely on entrance exams for higher education, excluding recruitment exams.
Rajasthan's Mahesh Kumar is the NEET-UG 2025 topper with AIR 1 after scoring 686 marks. Utkarsh Awadhiya from Madhya Pradesh and Krishang Joshi from Maharashtra have secured second and third spots by scoring 682 and 681, respectively.
NEET topper Joshi said that he switched to simple keypad phones during his exam preparations as smartphone was distracting him from studies.
'I took Akash Institute's coaching in Pune and cleared the exam in the first attempt. I studied for 7 hours at a coaching institute and 5 to 6 hours at home. In the initial days of my NEET preparations, I was experiencing distractions due to my smartphone and hence I switched to a keypad phone. After my NEET exam, I switched back to my smartphone. My parents and teachers supported me in my exam preparations,' Joshi told HT.
Joshi is hoping to get admission in MBBS at prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi as 'it is the most renowned institution, and it has the topmost faculties to develop exceptional skills as a doctor.'
According to students, coaching teachers and mentors, the difficulty level of question paper compared to last year is the reason behind a smaller number of students qualifying in NEET-UG 2025 even after the reduction in the cut-off marks from previous year.
The NEET-UG exam 2025 consisted of 180 multiple choice questions (MCQs) with a total score of 720. Of the 180 questions, 90 questions are from Biology, 45 questions from both Chemistry and Physics with each question having a weightage of 4 marks. The NEET marking scheme follows a structured pattern where candidates receive 4 marks for each correct answer 1 mark is deducted for each incorrect response. No marks are given or deducted for unattempted questions.
Compared to last year, the duration of the exam was reduced from 200 minutes last year to 180 minutes this year. This year, NTA also removed the provision for optional questions, introduced temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier, there were two sections (Section A and B) in the NEET paper and from section B, candidates had to attempt 10 out of the 15 questions in Physics and Chemistry and 20 out of the 30 in Biology. Candidates got 20 additional minutes to attempt the questions in section B.
A NEET aspirant from Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow, Anika Mishra scored 585 marks last year but secured only 530 marks this year. 'I did well in the Biology and Chemistry part but the sentences in Physics questions were lengthy and I could not attempt all questions as I wasted my time reading them. 'Even though I could solve a few questions in physics, I could not mark them on the OMR sheet,' she said.
Another NEET aspirant from UP's Hardoi Nitesh Patel said, 'Compared to last year, it took more time to solve physics questions. Last year, we were getting answers to questions in just one step by putting values in formulas but this year we could get answers only after solving questions in two-three steps.'
Dr Rahul Chawla, a NEET mentor from Delhi, said that there was a change in pattern this year. 'Last year, questions were easy and hence we saw so many candidates scoring over 600 marks. I think this year paper was not that tougher and not that easier compared to last year.'
Pritesh Maurya, a teacher at a NEET coaching centre in Lucknow, said that the language of questions this year was tougher than last year. 'Ideally, a student gets less than one minute to solve a question if he or she has to attempt all questions but this year students took 5 to 10 minutes to solve a question and hence we are seeing a smaller number of qualified candidates and a drop in qualifying cut-off marks.'
Maximum, 1,70,684 candidates qualified from Uttar Pradesh followed by 1,25,727 from Maharashtra. Rajasthan, home to India's coaching hubs like Kota and Sikar, witnessed qualification of 1,19,865 candidates.
The NEET UG 2025 qualifying cut-offs have been lowered for all categories compared to 2024. For general and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidates, the cut-off decreased from 720-162 marks to 686-144 marks, with 11,01,151 aspirants qualifying. For Other Backward Classes (OBC), the cut-off dropped from 161-127 to 143-113, with 88,692 candidates qualifying. The Scheduled Caste (SC) category saw a similar reduction from 161-127 to 143-113, with 31,995 candidates qualifying. For Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, the cut-off also fell from 161-127 to 143-113, with 13,940 qualifying.
In government-run educational institutes, 10% of seats are reserved for candidates from the EWS category, 27% for OBC-NCL candidates, 15% for SC candidates, and 7.5% for ST candidates.
The NEET qualified candidates will now majorly compete for 1,18,190 MBBS seats in 780 medical colleges, while others will opt for undergraduate dental, ayurveda, homeopathy, veterinary and para-medical programmes.
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Both have lost their jobs after the Supreme Court order. Shadab teaches Urdu in a school in Kankinara, and Aftab is a geography teacher in a Hindi-medium school in Titagarh. The couple occasionally brings their daughter to protests as there is no one to take care of her at home. 'What has happened to us is a grave injustice. The government is responsible for the corruption, and now we are on the brink of a crisis. What did we do to deserve this?' Shams says. Edited by Sunalini Mathew
