1,236,531 students, none with a perfect score , cleared the national entrance test that is required for admission to undergraduate medical and paramedical courses, the National Testing Agency (NTA) said on Saturday. Candidates check notice board for their allotted seats before appearing for the NEET UG exam, at an examination centre in Moradabad. (PTI)

The total number of students who cleared this year’s National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) was less than last year’s 1,315,853. But fewer — 2,209,318 — took the exam this year compared with 2,333,192 last year.

Also Read: NEET UG 2025: Over 12 lakh candidates qualified for MBBS admission

Rajasthan’s Mahesh Kumar was the top-ranked candidate with 686 marks. Utkarsh Awadhiya from Madhya Pradesh and Krishang Joshi from Maharashtra secured the second and third spots by scoring 682 and 681, respectively. Mrinal Kishore Jha at fourth position was the top ranked candidate from Delhi.

While 722,462 women cleared the exam compared with 514,063 men , there was just one woman in the top 10 ranks, Avika Aggarwal at all India rank 5 from Delhi. Six transgender candidates too cleared the exam, NTA said.

Also Read: Barnala boy secures All India Rank 7 in NEET UG, family eyes for AIIMS

No candidate for NEET-UG 2025, held in pen-and-paper mode in a single shift on May 4 across 5,468 centres in 552 cities in India and 14 abroad, scored a perfect 720 marks.

Also Read: Indore boy Utkarsha Awadhiya shines in NEET UG result

Last year, 17 candidates topped with full marks in a second iteration of the ranking after the first one released by NTA showed 67 had achieved a perfect score amid allegations of irregularities. Moreover, controversy arose after 1,563 NEET-UG 2024 candidates were given grace marks by NTA due to a loss of time for taking the exam. These grace marks were later cancelled and a retest ordered.

The controversy that reached the Supreme Court later paved the way for reforms in NTA. A government-appointed panel submitted a report on October 21 last year that recommended from 2025, the NTA will focus solely on entrance exams for higher education, excluding recruitment exams.

NEET topper Joshi, who cleared the exam on his first attempt, said he temporarily abandoned his smartphone as it was distracting him from studies.

“I studied for seven hours at a coaching institute and 5 to 6 hours at home. In the initial days of my NEET preparations, I was experiencing distractions due to my smartphone and hence I switched to a keypad phone. After my NEET exam, I switched back to my smartphone. My parents and teachers supported me in my exam preparations,” Joshi told HT.

Joshi is hoping to get admission for an MBBS degree at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

Likewise, Awadhiya said that he studied six-seven hours after attending coaching classes every day. “Every two hours, I used to take a break of 15-20 minutes to play volleyball and football,” he said. “During the break, I used to spend time with my family too. This helped me remain focussed on my studies.”

According to students, coaching teachers and mentors, the question paper was more difficult compared with last year. The duration of the exam was also reduced from 200 minutes last year to 180 minutes this year. NTA also removed the provision for optional questions, introduced temporarily during the Covid-19 pandemic

Anika Mishra from Lucknow , Uttar Pradesh, scored 585 marks last year but secured only 530 this year. “I did well in the Biology and Chemistry part but the sentences in Physics questions were lengthy and I could not attempt all questions as I wasted my time reading them. Even though I could solve a few questions in physics, I could not mark them on the sheet,” she said.

Another student from UP, Hardoi Nitesh Patel, said, “Compared to last year, it took more time to solve physics questions. Last year, we were getting answers to questions in just one step by putting values in formulas but this year we could get answers only after solving questions in two-three steps.”

Pritesh Maurya, a teacher at a NEET coaching centre in Lucknow, said that the language of questions this year was tougher than last year. “Ideally, a student gets less than one minute to solve a question if he or she has to attempt all questions but this year students took 5 to 10 minutes to solve a question…,” he said.

Uttar Pradesh with 1,70,684 had the most number of successful candidates followed by Maharashtra with 1,25,727. Rajasthan, home to India’s coaching hubs such as Kota and Sikar, had 1,19,865 candidates qualify.

NEET UG 2025 saw lower qualifying cut-offs compared to 2024, according to NTA. For general and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidates, the cut-off decreased from 720-162 marks to 686-144 marks, with 11,01,151 aspirants qualifying. For Other Backward Classes (OBC), the cut-off dropped from 161-127 to 143-113, with 88,692 candidates qualifying. The Scheduled Caste (SC) category saw a similar reduction from 161-127 to 143-113, with 31,995 candidates qualifying. For Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, the cut-off also fell from 161-127 to 143-113, with 13,940 qualifying.

In government-run educational institutes, 10% of seats are reserved for candidates from the EWS category, 27% for OBC-NCL candidates, 15% for SC candidates, and 7.5% for ST candidates.

Those who cleared NEET will now mainly compete for 1,18,190 MBBS seats in 780 medical colleges..