After NEET, all eyes on merit list

Six of top 10 in engineering admission list qualify for medicine; State Board students stand a good chance

After all that suspense over when results of NEET would be announced, now comes another round of waiting. This time for the merit list for MBBS admission.

The State government announced last week that marks obtained in NEET alone would be taken into consideration for admission along with a rider that if the President’s assent for its Bills seeking exemption from NEET is received, then admission would be done based on the Plus Two scores of candidates as has been done over the last few years.

Incidentally, six of the 10 toppers in Tamil Nadu engineering admission merit list released recently have also qualified for medical admissions. They have good scores in NEET as well that could see them secure admission in medical colleges.

B. Sowmiya, ranked 10 with a cut-off of 200, has scored 248 in NEET but is hopeful of getting a seat in a government medical college under the SC quota. She did not attend coaching classes but used her brother’s NEET study material from last year, she says. B. Shobila, ranked 9th with 200 marks, has a NEET score of 341 and hopes to get into one of the older medical colleges.

But P. Thirumagan, whose son Sathishvar is ranked 8th and has scored 435, won’t speculate. “We hear that his score is good but there may be hundreds of students above him; we don’t know about his chances of being admitted to a college of his choice,” he says.

Analysing the paper

An ICSE student who had scored 477 is trying to apply for colleges in other States but is worried that his domiciliary status could deprive him of his seat. “I have good scores if NEET is the basis for admission in Tamil Nadu, but I can’t be sure,” he says.

Meanwhile, NEET trainers have started analysing the trend. “In the current scenario where the State will allocate 85% seats to State Board students, those with 300 to 350 ranks could get seats in government medical colleges. Since only around 4,000 students from CBSE have taken the test, we think an SC student with 250 marks from State board could get a seat,” says B. Vivekan.