NEET booster shot: Cut-offs keep rising as students shine

PROGRESS REPORT

NEET booster shot: Cut-offs keep rising as students shine

Many Retake Exam To Enter Better Institutes; High Scores Up Competition For Seats In Govt Colleges

Pushpa.Narayan@timesgroup.com

12.01.2021

For four years, almost all parties in the state have been protesting National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) as the sole eligibility for admissions to medical and dental colleges. But with every passing year since 2017 — when the state first adopted NEET — students have been raising the bar.

On Monday, data released by the state selection committee, a day after it closed MBBS admissions under the state quota, showed that the last student to enter medical college this year under the state quota scored 281 in NEET compared to 140 in 2017. The committee allots students the college of choice based on merit in NEET and 69% rule of reservation.

“It is not just cut-offs that have gone up in the past four years. The top scores in NEET have also increased,” said director of medical education Dr R Narayanababu. This year, seven students had marks above 700 compared to none last year. There were 205 students who scored more than 650 compared to 12 students last year. “Many students attempt NEET more than once so they get better colleges. In fact, most of the toppers are students who have repeated the exam for the second or third time,” he said.

This crowding at the top has made entrance to top city colleges such as Madras Medical College or Stanley Medical Colleges for the state tougher. For instance, the cut-off for open category students to join the Madras Medical College was 660 and the last student who entered the college had scored 511 marks.

Meritorious students opt for seats in government colleges, where annual tuition fee is ₹13,600. Up to 50% of seats in self-financing medical colleges are categorised as state quota seats. The annual tuition fee for students admitted under the state quota is between ₹3.85 lakh and ₹4.15 lakh compared to ₹12.5 lakh for students under the management quota and ₹23.5 lakh for NRI.

Eligible students, who don’t make it under the state quota, apply for management quota seats in self-financing colleges. Experts say more students in TN may make it to state quota if toppers make “smarter” choices.

Many toppers in the state are still apprehensive about applying for the online counselling held by the medical counselling committee (MCC) of the directorate general of health services. The MCC conducts counselling for the central government institutions and the 15% of seats surrendered by states from government colleges for admission under the all-India quota, besides deemed universities.

While some toppers apply to Jipmer in Puducherry, not many students try for intuitions such as AIIMS or Armed Forces Medical College. Many students with score about 600 told TOI that they were not aware of the centralised counselling, while some others said they decided to stay in TN. “Earlier, students did not apply because they had to write separate tests. But this year, the process for admissions to all colleges was similar,” said R Sathish Kumar, student counsellor. “We hope that their impression towards studying in colleges outside the state will change,” he said.