Cut-offs rise for medical institutes in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: Despite lower scores in the National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET), students were disappointed to find out that the cut-offs to the medical and dental institutes in the state have gone up compared to last year. The state Common Entrance Test (CET) cell released the first provisional merit list for the undergraduate MBBS and BDS aspirants late on Tuesday.

“Even though the overall NEET scores have gone down compared to 2017, more students have scored between 500 and 600 marks this time. This has increased the competition for seats in the top institutes and led to the high cut-offs this time,” said a parent, on condition of anonymity.

Last year, the cut-off for MBBS and BDS seats was between 131 and 697 marks out of the total 720. On the other hand, in 2018, the 50 percentile includes students who have scored in the range of 119-691 marks. This has automatically resulted in more students qualifying for admissions this year. As many as 6.11 lakh students qualified for the MBBS and BDS admissions last year compared to 7.14 lakh students this year. Similarly, from the open category, 6.34 lakh students qualified for admissions this year as opposed to 5.43 lakh students in the same category last year. Students across the country were unhappy that once again, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) did not accept any challenges (on alleged question paper errors) made by the students, thus making an impact on the overall NEET scores. “Students whose names have appeared on the provisional list have to get all their necessary documents verified to make sure they have documents to prove the category under which they have applied. The final first merit list will be released on July 4,” said an official from the state directorate of medical education and research (DMER).