With a percentile score of 99.99, two students – Prabanjan J from Tamil Nadu and Bora Varun Chakravarthi from Andhra Pradesh – topped the 2023 National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) for undergraduate admission, the results of which were announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday night.
Pranjal Aggarwal with a fourth all-India rank was announced as the topper among the female candidates. Four of the top 10 candidates belong to Tamil Nadu, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Odisha and West Bengal.
The exam, which was conducted nationwide and in 14 cities abroad on May 7, was approved by 56.2% of candidates. A total of 11.45 lakh candidates out of 20.38 lakh passed the exam with the largest number of those eligible being from Uttar Pradesh (1.39 lakh) followed by Maharashtra (1.31 lakh) and Rajasthan (more than 1 lakh).
According to the NTA, the hub that conducts various entrance exams in the country, the NEET-UG exam saw the highest registration of 20,87,462 candidates this year. Of them, 20,38,596 or 97.6% appeared, and a total of 11,45,976 or 56.2% candidates were approved. The pass rate is the same as last year.
Of those who qualify for the country’s largest entrance exam for admission to undergraduate MBBS and BDS courses, 6,55,599 are women and 4,90,374 are men, not counting three transgender people, according to the NTA.
Prabanjan and Bora, who are tied in rank, have scored perfect 720 points or 99.9 percentile and have been declared joint all-India toppers.
Prabanjan J from Tamil Nadu was too busy giving media interviews late on Tuesday night when his uncle, with whom he is staying in Chennai, told News18 that they knew he would be among the top stars, but not the first all- India had expected rank.
“He has always been a top performer in other exams including class XII. We just didn’t expect him to get the highest rank. It’s a dream come true. He always wanted to be a doctor and will be the first generation of doctors in his family. Both his parents are teachers in a government school,’ said Nanda Kumar, Prabanjan’s uncle.
He plans to become a surgeon and has All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as his first choice of medical degree, Kumar added.
Kastav Bauri of Tamil Nadu, Pranjal Aggrawal of Punjab and Dhruv Advani of Karnataka placed third, fourth and fifth respectively. Although they also scored a percentile of 99.99, the ranking is determined using NTA’s “tiebreak” formula where, in the event of a tie, the scores in Biology are considered first to determine their ranking, followed by Chemistry and Physics.
Of the 11,45,976 qualified applicants, 3,12,405 came from the unreserved category, 5,25,194 from the OBC category, 1,53,674 from SC, 56381 from ST and 98,322 from the EWS category. In addition, 3,508 candidates from the category of people with disabilities also passed the exam.
According to NTA, the exam saw an increase in qualifying marks this year. For example, the range of qualifying grades for the general category was 715-117 points last year and has risen to 720-137 this year. Similarly, for reserved categories – OBC SC and ST – it is up from 116-93 to 136-107 this year.
The result of NEET-UG, 2023 has been declared based on the qualification criteria prescribed by the National Medical Commission and Dental Council of India and also based on the information submitted by the candidates in their online application forms, the NTA said in a statement.
The NEET-UG was conducted in 4,097 centers in 499 cities across the country. The survey was also conducted outside India in Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Colombo, Doha, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Manama, Muscat, Riyadh, Sharjah and Singapore, along with Dubai and Kuwait City.
The exam was conducted in 13 languages: Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
Also, the NTA announced that details and the schedule of counseling would be available on the websites of the union ministry of health and family welfare and state medical education directorates, as appropriate.