You just got your NEET-PG score and were shocked to see a poor score even a negative one, that being -40. You are not yet ready to give up. To an unprecedented and historic step in the history of medical admissions, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has revised drastically the eligibility criteria to the NEET-PG 2025 counselling, even the candidates with negative marks are now eligible to join the final round of the admissions. This move exists in the face of a national dilemma of 18,000 plus postgraduate medical seats going waste all over India despite two rounds of counselling.
What Was the Rationale behind this Change at NBEMS?
Historically, NEET-PG minimum eligibility criteria were very rigid:
- 50th percentile on the General category,
- 45th percentile General-PwBD,
- 40 th percentile among candidates of SC/ ST/ OBC.
These minimum percentile scores were required of the candidates to be eligible to counselling regardless of whether a seat was available. But following round 2 of NEET-PG 2025 counselling, authorities were horrified to realize that there were thousands of seats remaining unfilled, and a dilemma arose that could leave the potential of so much education and medical staff unexploited.
As a reaction, NBEMS has reduced qualifying percentile to zero in case of SC, ST, and OBC categories, i.e. even candidates scoring as low as -40 of 800 (common in some NEET-PG scripts due to negative marking) are technically eligible to be counselled. The cut-off was reduced to 7 th percentile in the case of both the general and EWS categories and 5 th percentile in the case of General-PwBD applicants.
What Does This Mean for You?
And when you are a person who just happened to miss the old cut-off by a significant margin, including even negative marks, this policy change opens an opportunity that you had never anticipated. At this point, you can be permitted to take part in the counselling process of MD/MS/DNB seats, as per the availability of vacancies and in accordance with you position in the rank list.
Prior to this change, any candidate whose score was less than the minimum percentile was disqualified in all rounds of counselling, which effectively terminated his or her opportunity to attend a postgraduate medical course of study that year. That obstacle has now been to a considerable extent eliminated particularly among reserved category applicants.
Is This a “Free Pass”? Not Quite
Many would-be doctors are reasonably thrilled at this — what it does and does not change is:
✔ Eligibility Increased: You can now be eligible to counselling.
✔ Seats Still Competitive: NEET-PG rank and preference of candidates by the official counselling process conducted by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) are still used to do admissions.
✔ Merit Still Counts: Despite a low score, the applicants with more popular specialties will have their seats still assigned to higher-ranking ones. You are not thrust into a specialty, you simply get choices according to where you rank in the counselling chain.
✔ Not Every Seat Will Be Low Credentialed: Particularly in high-need areas of clinical practice (such as Medicine, Surgery, or Paediatrics), the seats are occupied quickly. However, in non-clinical and less popular areas of specialization, there may truly be opportunities.
Thus, although this is not a free pass ticket to any branch, it is a second chance, a valid one, and maybe a final chance to many.
Why Are So Many Seats Vacant?
It may not make sense that a competitive test such as NEET-PG is not filling up seats. This is caused by a number of factors:
- There were cut-offs that were strict and restricted the number of qualified candidates.
- The favouring of one type of specialties over the others made others less popular and difficult to fill.
- There are less attractive seats because of geographic and service bond problems.
The NBEMS and the Health Ministry were encouraged to ease cut-offs by this landscape not to erode medical standards, but to make the most of the available seats and avoid valuable slots to be wasted.
Critics Are Concerned
This change is not felt as good by all. This has raised eyebrows of a number of medical bodies and professionals who claim that reducing the cut-off by so much might weaken the perceived value of merit in NEET-PG and might also interfere with the quality of future specialists. Critics believe that eligibility matters particularly in a discipline where accuracy and academic rigor has implications in the real world.
So, Should You Be Hopeful?
Surely but with reasonable hopes.
It is a rare opportunity rather than a guarantee of this rule change. In case of the cut-off being lower than the last cut-off or even negative:
- Sign up round-3 counselling, in case you are not already.
- Get involved, what possibilities appear behind your dashboard.
- Think of all specialties, as well as non-clinical ones in particular – they can be your best possibilities in this year.
And keep in mind, you already have MBBS and this implies that you have successfully completed a demanding 5-1/2-year training in medicine. A graduate degree will be an addition to your skills. Your career as a doctor will not be determined by a single exam result, and it is particularly in this out-of-the-ordinary scenario.
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