NEET UG 2026 records second-lowest attendance under NTA, but highest-ever qualifying cut-off

THe subject Eligibility cum spellbind essay ( undergrad) or NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, conducted after the subject Testing Agency (NTA) cancelled the original May 3 test over an alleged paper leak, has produced two contrasting records: the second-lowest attendance since NTA began conducting the country's largest medical entrance examination in 2019, and the highest qualifying cut-off ever recorded.Data released by the NTA on Thursday night, along with the results, show that only 1.999 million of the 2.280 million registered candidates appeared for the June 21 re-examination, translating into an attendance rate of 87.72%. This was 9 percentage points lower than the 96.72% attendance recorded in the original May 3 examination, with 205,140 fewer candidates turning up for the re-test. At the same time, the minimum qualifying score for the General/Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category climbed to a record 213 marks, the highest since NTA started conducting the examination in 2019, even though the proportion of candidates qualifying remained virtually unchanged.The attendance rate in the June 21 re-examination was the lowest in any non-pandemic NEET conducted by the NTA, and the second-lowest overall, after 2020, when attendance dropped to 85.57% amid the Covid-19 pandemic.Attendance in NEET-UG stood at 92.85% in 2019, the first year NTA conducted the examination, before falling to 85.57% in 2020 because of the pandemic. It recovered to 95.63% in 2021 and 94.24% in 2022, climbed to 97.66% in 2023 and remained above 97% in 2025 (97.07%).Of the 2.280 million candidates registered for NEET-UG 2026, 2.205 million had appeared for the May 3 examination. Following the cancellation, only 1.999 million candidates eventually took the June 21 re-test.The NTA cancelled the May 3 examination on May 12, days after receiving an email alleging that a circulated "guess paper" substantially overlapped with the question paper. It announced the re-examination on May 15, scheduling it for June 21. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the alleged paper leak, has arrested 13 people so far.Although the NTA did not release gender-wise attendance data for the original May 3 examination, a comparison with 2025 shows that male attendance fell from 97.04% to 89.54%, a decline of 7.5 percentage points, while female attendance dropped more sharply from 97.09% to 86.44%, a decline of 10.65 percentage points.NTA officials did not respond to HT’s requests for a comment on the fall in attendance and the increase in cut-off marks.Keshav Agarwal, educationist and vice-president of the Delhi-based Coaching Federation of India (CFI), which has nearly 1,000 coaching institutes as its members, said the decline reflected the burden imposed by the re-examination.“The drop in attendance percentage was far steeper among female aspirants than males, underscoring the greater challenges girls face. While 99,083 boys did not appear for the exam, the girls who did not appear are 180,862 students. The reasons for this is that many candidates were allotted examination centres 200-400 km away from their home cities, increasing travel and accommodation costs. The break in momentum, safety concerns, travel hardships and family pressures were amplified because of the disruption,” he said.Dr Lakshya Mittal, chairperson of the doctors body United Doctors Front (UDF) said the drop of over two lakh candidates in the re-examination is “deeply concerning and highlights the financial and mental burden repeated examinations place on students.”Despite the steep fall in attendance, the qualifying benchmark moved in the opposite direction.The UR/EWS qualifying cut-off increased to 213 marks, up 69 marks from 144 last year. It is the highest qualifying cut-off recorded since NTA assumed responsibility for NEET in 2019. The cut-off had stood at 134 marks in 2019, 147 in 2020, 138 in 2021, 117 in 2022, 137 in 2023, 162 in 2024, and 144 in 2025, before climbing sharply this year.Yet the higher qualifying score did not translate into a larger proportion of candidates qualifying.Of the 1.999 million candidates who appeared this year, 1.121 million qualified, translating into a qualifying rate of 56.06%. The figure is almost identical to 55.97% in 2025 and mirrors a trend that has remained remarkably stable since 2019. In 2019, 797,042 of the 1.411 million candidates who appeared qualified, a qualifying rate of 56.50%. The rate stood at 56.44% in 2020, 56.34% in 2021, 56.28% in 2022, 56.21% in 2023, 56.39% in 2024, 55.97% in 2025, and 56.06% in 2026.The data indicate that while the minimum marks required to qualify have fluctuated sharply over the years—from 117 in 2022 to 213 in 2026—the proportion of candidates declared qualified has remained consistentlyaround 56%.According to experts, the reason lies in the design of the examination. NEET eligibility is determined on the basis of percentiles rather than fixed marks. Candidates crossing the prescribed percentile qualify irrespective of the absolute score required in a particular year. As a result, the record-high qualifying cut-off reflects a stronger overall score distribution among candidates who appeared for the re-examination rather than a larger share of students qualifying.Agarwal attributed the higher cut-off to several factors. “Students benefited from nearly a month of extra preparation time, while an easier Biology section helped boost scores at the lower end. Tougher Physics and Chemistry prevented an excessive spike at the top. The absence of over two lakh candidates also reduced competition from less-prepared aspirants, collectively pushing the qualifying threshold higher," he said.The number of candidates qualifying broadly tracked the number appearing over the years. Qualifiers increased from 797,042 in 2019 to 771,500 in 2020, 870,074 in 2021, 993,069 in 2022, crossed the one-million mark with 1.146 million in 2023, and peaked at 1.316 million in 2024. They declined to 1.237 million in 2025 and further to 1.121 million this year, largely because participation also fell sharply following the re-examination.While 2026 recorded the lowest number of qualifiers since 2022, it was not the lowest since NTA began conducting NEET-UG. The number of qualifiers was lower in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. The decline from last year's 1.237 million qualifiers therefore reflects reduced attendance rather than a lower success rate.State-wise, Uttar Pradesh once again produced the largest pool of successful candidates, with more than 170,000 qualifiers, while Lakshadweep had 43. The top 17 candidates, all scoring above 705, came from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.