CHENNAI: The selection committee under the Directorate of Medical Education added over 360 candidates to the MBBS and BDS final merit list on Wednesday, after giving eligible students a one-day window to upload missing documents, including nativity certificates, to their online applications.
This is possibly the first time so many candidates have been added to the merit list after its official release. Counselling for MBBS and BDS admissions for the 2026-27 academic year will commence on Thursday. Selection committee secretary Dr V Lokanayaki said 363 candidates were added after the one-day extension.
“We couldn’t avoid it as we got so many requests by email from students to give time. We couldn’t postpone the release of the merit list as the medical counselling committee released tentative schedule for the counselling. We wanted to start on August 13 as per their schedule. We decided to give it one more day after discussing in a committee. It was done entirely for the sake of students.”
Education counsellor Manickavel Arumugam said that while the selection committee’s intent may have been to give genuine, eligible candidates a chance, postponing the release of the rank list itself would have been a better option. This, he said, could have avoided confusion among students, some of whose ranks would have dropped as a result of the addition.
After all submitted documents were scrutinised, the merit list for admission to the MBBS and BDS courses was published on August 10, the committee said.
Subsequently, the selection committee gave applicants for the MBBS and BDS courses a final one-day extension to upload their missing certificates on the portal.
