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In 2024, approximately 23.33 lakh students registered for the NEET-UG exam of which nearly 13 lakh students qualified in the results declared on June 4.
Following discrepancies and allegations of paper leaks, 813 out of 1,563 students appeared for a re-test on June 23, results of which will be announced on June 30.
Meanwhile, the CBI continues to probe the NEET-UG paper leak case even as NEET-UG counselling is scheduled to begin in July.
As students face these challenging circumstances, career experts help us understand what the future holds for undergraduate medical aspirants.
Almost a decade ago, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (undergraduate) exam was recommended as a solution to deal with the irregularities and malpractices of the All India Pre Medical Test, previously conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education.
After a series of protests and political debates, NEET-UG was finally adopted as the single national-level entrance examination for students seeking admission to undergraduate medical programmes in India.
While the exam continued to ruffle feathers every year for its strict dress code and the way candidates, especially young women, are frisked at the exam centre, there are experts who feel it is disadvantageous to students from state boards.
A lot has also been discussed about the various instances of irregularities in the way the exam has been conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
This year, the exam -- which was conducted on May 5 -- made headlines due to reports of students allegedly cheating at multiple centres in the country, followed by reports of leaked question papers and students being given less than the assigned time to complete the test at certain centres.
The results, declared 10 days ahead of schedule on June 4, coincided with the election results; shockingly, a total of 67 students received perfect scores.
Of these, reported The Indian Express newspaper, 44 students got grace marks which helped them reach 720/720.
The Indian Express report also quoted a parent, Brijesh Sutaria, who said, 'In 2023, only two students scored 720/720.' In 2022, he said, nobody had a perfect score. The highest score that year was 715/720.
While NTA tried to salvage the situation by insisting that 44 of the top scorers were awarded grace marks because of a mistake in the physics question, it wasn't enough to convince the hordes of students protesting against the discrepancies in the exam process this year.
As many as 1,563 students reported that they were allotted less time to complete the test. They were initially awarded grace marks; when students protested, the NTA took back the extra marks and declared a retest which was attended by only 813 students across seven centres.
The CBI continues to probe the incident, tracking those who leaked question the question papers and the NTA for discrepancies in the manner in which the exam was conducted.
The Economic Offences Unit, reports the Hindustan Times newspaper, has so far arrested 18 people -- the accusations they face include 'paper leaks, malpractice, manipulation at exam centres and result discrepancies'.
Meanwhile, the 2,333,297 students (as per the NTA) who have appeared for NEET-UG, hoping to get one of the 91,927 seats available, face enormous stress as they try to make this all-important career decision.
Simultaneously, approximately 200,000 students who registered for the NEET-PG exam are also staring at an uncertain future.
The NEET-PG exam was initially set to be conducted on March 3. In January, the exam was postponed to July 8 and later advanced to June 23.
A day before the exam, it was postponed again as a precautionary measure, causing enormous distress to the aspirants who may now have to look for options abroad to avoid further delay that could lead to their losing a year of study.
The education ministry, in a statement, explained this ping pong with the exam date. 'Taking into consideration the recent incidents of allegations regarding the integrity of certain competitive examinations, the ministry has decided to undertake a thorough assessment of the robustness of processes of NEET-PG entrance examination. It has accordingly been decided, as a precautionary measure, to postpone the NEET-PG Entrance Examination, scheduled to be held on June 23.'
Will the CBI enquiry impact the NEET-UG counselling process that will take place all through the month of July?
What happens to those students who could not crack the medical entrance exam this year?
We asked career experts and counsellors to explain what the future holds for undergraduate medical aspirants.
According to rediffGURU Nayagam P P, "India's centralised exam system is losing its credibility. The effectiveness and reliability of the NTA in conducting large-scale entrance exams, which include the NEET and University Grants Commission -- National Eligibility Test (postgraduates aspiring to pursue a PhD or a teaching career need to clear the UGC-NET) have come under criticism this year."
'I cracked NEET-UG 2024. What should I do next?'
"As the Supreme Court has refused to stay the counselling process of NEET-UG 2024, students who have cleared the exam can continue to participate in the online counselling sessions expected to begin in the first week of July 2024," says Nayagam.
The results of the re-examination of 813 students (the rest of the 1,563 students will retain their original marks; the grace marks given to them have been nullified) will be declared on June 30.
Students can shortlist and apply to their preferred colleges based on the cutoff ranks of last year.
While this seems easy on paper, the ground reality is far more challenging.
"This year, the number of students appearing for NEET sharply rose by 4 lakh," observes rediffGURU Mayank Chandel.
"Repeaters were more in number hence the cutoff was raised from 137 to 164 for the open category students," says Chandel, founder, CareerStreets, who has two decades of experience in coaching and training students for competitive exams like the IIT-JEE and NEET-UG.
"Admissions will be tough this year as we have less than one lakh seats for MBBS in India," he adds.
Chandel feels that students should seek professional help before filling up their admission choices. "I have seen many deserving students lose their seats due to improper choice or inadequate knowledge when to comes to filling the form and/or understanding the options available to them.'
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Those who have scored well should go for all India counselling as well as state counselling to get a seat, he adds.
'I have not appeared for NEET-UG retest. What should I do?'
"The score of the students who did not appear for the re-examination will be based on the exam held on May 5, without the addition of grace marks. These students can participate in the online counselling process with other students," says Nayagam.
"The rankings and cutoffs will be revised for all and might even come down a bit."
'I did not qualify for NEET-UG 2024. What should I do next?'
"If you did not qualify for NEET-UG 2024 this year, you can take a drop and prepare for the exam next year," suggests Nayagam.
"If you are a repeater and have not qualified this year, but did clear the cutoff last year, you can pursue your MBBS abroad based on your last year's qualifying score," advises Chandel. "If you do not want to take a gap, you can consider alternatives like BPTh (bachelor of physiotherapy), BSc in forensics and pharmacy among others."
Keeping in mind the increase in allied health professionals after COVID, Nayagam enlists a long list of courses that students can pursue, including allied medicine/health science courses like:
'I did not crack NEET-UG 2024. Should I apply to private colleges or study abroad?'
"If you have scored less than the cutoff limit for NEET and you cannot get a desired government or semi-government seat, you must try for other states' counselling where the cutoff is less," says Mayank Chandel.
"If finances are not a problem, then you can look for private or deemed colleges.
"However, if you cannot get a government seat in India and cannot afford private colleges here, then pursuing an MBBS abroad is a very good and economical option.
Every year more than 20,000 students go abroad for medical studies.
Earlier foreign medical graduates had to appear for the FMGE (Foreign Medical Graduates Examination) to get a practitioner's licence.
Since 2023, both foreign medical graduates and Indian medical graduates have to clear the NEXT (National Exit Test) exam in order to practise in India.