CHENNAI: Health Minister Ma Subramanian released the merit list for MBBS and BDS admissions for 2025-26 academic year on Friday. The counselling for general category and special category will begin from July 30. For special category and 7.5% reservation for government school students, the counselling will be conducted offline, while it is online for general category. The cut-off marks to join MBBS in government medical colleges in TN are likely to decrease this year.
The merit list released for general category showed no-one scoring above 700 marks in NEET-UG. The number one ranked student scored 665, the highest. Last year 90 students had crossed 700 marks. Even in the 7.5% quota for government school students, there is a major drop in the number of top scorers. The top NEET-UG score is 572. Last year it was 669.
R Ashwin, career guidance expert, said his marks reduced as physics paper was tough this year. The expected cut-off for open category in government medical colleges in TN this year is 535 marks, while in 2024 it was 651.
For the 7.5% quota, the expected cut-off in government medical colleges is 421 marks, when it was 495 in 2024 for the BC category. The expected cut-off to join the premier Madras Medical College, Chennai, for open category is 595, while it was 695 marks last year, Ashwin added.
Manickavel Arumugam, education counsellor, said overall the NEET paper was tough. In government colleges under open category, the cut-off is likely to decrease by 115 marks compared to last year.
The selection committee received 72,473 applications – 29,680 more than last year. It received 4,281 applications for 7.5% reservation. Subramanian said there are 6,600 government quota MBBS seats in government and self-financing colleges, while 1,583 government quota BDS seats in government and self-financing dental colleges.
There are 39,853 candidates on the general merit list, 4,062 on the 7.5% merit list and 28,279 on the management merit list. The offline counselling will be conducted at the Government Super Speciality Hospital, Omandurar Estate.
First-timers less than 1/3rd
Of the 39,853 candidates in the general category, only 12,354 had taken the NEET-UG for the first time. While 15,119 candidates had appeared for the exam the second time, for 8,381 this was the third attempt.
Another 3,999 had sat the exam for the fourth time, while the number for fifth attempt or more than five times stood at 362. Under the 7.5% quota, only 859 of the 4,062 candidates in the rank list had appeared for NEET-UG for the first time, while the rest had appeared for more than one time.
Officials said that this has been the trend over the past few years.