Nagpur: The NEET cutoff for general category students has risen to 213 marks out of 720 this year, the highest in three years and 69 marks more than last year.The cutoff stood at 144 last year and 162 the year before, according to a key data document released by the National Testing Agency (NTA) along with the results. For OBC, SC and ST students it climbed to 177 from 113, a jump of 64 marks.Sarang Upganlawar, vice president of the Coaching Federation of India (CFI), attributed the rise to the difficulty level of one paper and the smaller applicant pool. Upganlawar said, “Biology, which carries 360 out of 720 marks, was relatively easy. As a result, a large number of students scored high marks, pushing the cutoff upward.”A jump of 69 marks means students in the middle of the pack scored far better than they did last year.Upganlawar said the fall in candidates skewed the percentile upward. Upganlawar said, “Nearly 2 lakh fewer students appeared for the examination compared to last year. The students who did not appear are generally from the lower-scoring segment. Consequently, the overall proportion of higher-performing candidates increased, leading to a rise in the 50th percentile cutoff.”The number of students who qualified fell for the second year running, from 13.16 lakh in 2024 to 12.37 lakh last year and 11.21 lakh this year. Performance was not the reason, as 56% of those who wrote the exam cleared it, almost exactly the same share as last year. The entire fall came from 2.09 lakh fewer students writing the exam.The top score also recovered, climbing to 715 out of 720 from 686 last year, while 19 students scored above 700 and 1,492 scored 650 or more.Maharashtra accounted for 1.07 lakh of those who qualified, third behind Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, while at least two students from Nagpur made the national list of the top 138, all of whom scored 690 or more.
