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

The NEET UG 2026 re-examination, necessitated by the cancellation of the original May 3 test over alleged paper leaks, has recorded a stark contrast: the second-lowest attendance rate since the National Testing Agency (NTA) began administering the exam in 2019, alongside the highest qualifying cut-off score ever.

Data released by the NTA shows that only 1.999 million of the 2.280 million registered candidates appeared for the June 21 re-examination, resulting in an attendance rate of 87.72%. This figure represents a significant drop from the 96.72% attendance in the initial May 3 exam, with 205,140 fewer candidates appearing for the rescheduled test. The attendance rate was the lowest in any non-pandemic NEET conducted by the NTA and second-lowest overall, surpassed only by the 85.57% attendance during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Concurrently, the minimum qualifying score for the General and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) categories climbed to a record 213 marks. This marks the highest cut-off since the NTA took over the examination in 2019, even as the proportion of candidates who qualified remained largely unchanged.

The NTA canceled the May 3 examination on May 12 following allegations of a significant overlap between a circulated "guess paper" and the actual question paper. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is currently probing the alleged leak, having arrested 13 individuals so far. While NTA officials did not comment on the decline in attendance or the rise in cut-off marks, educationists suggest the burden of the re-examination may have contributed to the lower turnout.