Medical admission counselling is a process wherein seats in medical colleges are allotted to eligible applicants on basis of their NEET Rank, category, quota and college choices. The entire process of medical admission counselling is organized online on designated websites. Honorable Supreme Court of India has mandated that all medical seat allotments shall happen through online process and there shall be no seat allotment at college.

Medical admission counselling is organized at 2 levels: central counselling by MCC (Medical counselling Committee under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) and state counselling by respective state DGME (Director General of Medical Education).

Central counselling or commonly known as MCC counselling manages seat allotment for 15% AIQ seats of all government medical colleges from all over India (known as All India Quota) along with 100% seats of INI, Central Universities and Deemed medical universities.

State admission counselling manages seat allotment for 85% seats of all government medical colleges (also known as state quota seats) and 100% seats of all private medical colleges and private minority medical colleges of the respective state. The private medical colleges are also known by different nomenclatures such as self financing institutes, unaided colleges etc.

Medical Admission Counselling Process

Medical admission counselling is a process involving steps for counselling registration by eligible candidates, registration and security payments, document upload and verification, medical colleges choice filling, seat allotment. This process is repeated over minimum 3 and maximum 5 rounds until all the medical seats in all participating medical colleges are allotted and filled.

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Each step in every round of medical admission counselling may have specific rules and regulations which are published for information of students and parents. These rules and regulations may be published as information bulletin or prospectus or government gazette notifications. The published rules and regulations are binding in nature and any violation can be challenged in courts.

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It is important for a student or parents to be well versed with counselling rules and regulations because any violation may lead to financial loss, admission opportunity loss and may even lead to disqualification for further rounds of counselling. Though the rules and regulations are published prominently but in many instances, the language of published prospectus gets too legal to be inferred accurately by a student.

To download the previous year’s counselling prospectus, information bulletins, please click here

Eligibility for medical admission counselling

To participate in any medical admission counselling, it is imperative that the student must have qualified NEET exam conducted by NTA (National Testing Agency). If a student has not scored minimum qualifying marks as defined for his/her category, then the student can not register for medical admission counselling. The qualifying cut off and percentile scores are mentioned in the student’s NEET score card.

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MCC counselling is domicile free which means students from all over India, irrespective of their domicile state, can participate in MCC counselling. State medical counselling allow registration of only eligible domicile students. The domicile rules are very broad and unique for different states. The residency and/or schooling form a critical aspect of domicile eligibility condition.

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State medical admission counselling allocates state quota seats of government medical colleges only to registered domicile students. Some state admission counselling may conditionally allow participation of non-domicile NEET qualified students for seat allotment of their private and minority private medical colleges. In summary there are some open state medical counselling and closed state medical counselling.

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Medical admission counselling process

The entire process of medical admission counselling irrespective of MCC or state, is organized online. The first step of medical admission counselling process is registration. A student must register for a medical admission counselling to seek seat allotment in a medical college participating in the common counselling. The registration requirements differ widely among different medical admission counselling.

After initial registration, state admission counselling may require document uploading on electronic mode. The document uploading is a necessary step to establish the domicile eligibility on basis of residency and/or academic records. The document uploading is an online process in which scan images are required to be uploaded for verification and establishing the eligibility of the student.

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Counselling Fees and Payments

The registration process also involves online payment of counselling registration fees. The counselling registration fee varies from state to state and is non-refundable. There may also be online deposit of security amount. The security deposit is refundable and is refunded to eligible applicants after end of counselling process. The security deposit is forfeited if there is any violation of counselling rules and regulations by the applicant.

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The security deposit amount depends on category of medical colleges where the student wants to apply for admission. The security deposit is essential to become eligible for college choice filling. The security amount for government college counselling may range from Rs. 10,000- Rs. 25,000 and for private medical college and deemed medical universities the security deposit may range between Rs. 1,00,000- Rs, 2,00,000.

College Choice Filling

The most crucial and critical aspect of every medical admission counselling is college choice filling. The choice filling is process of rank ordering the participating medical colleges in descending order of the preference. To participate in the seat allotment process, it is essential to fill at least one college in college choice list. If an applicant doesn’t fill any choice, then he/she becomes ineligible for that round’s seat allotment.

It is important to understand that college choice filling is based on individual preferences. A student can fill as many or all the available colleges in the choice list but it is mandatory to fill in at least one choice. The filled choice list is either locked automatically after the stipulated time and/or some counselling demand the manual locking of choices. If choice locking is not done, then the student automatically becomes ineligible for seat allotment.

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Most students refer to past year admission cut offs for filling up the college choice list. The cut offs are usually derived from previous year’s counselling allotment results. The cut off rank or score is taken as the lowest score of last year’s admission in that particular college. Though the cut offs will differ with counselling round, student category and quota but it is difficult to collate the accurate data on previous year’s cut offs.

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Publishing of Seat Allotment Result

The final step of medical admission counselling is the seat allocation. The seat allocation is completely computerized and no human intervention is allowed. The seat allotment protocols may differ from state to state but generally the seat is allotted to the student in the highest ranked medical college of his/her college choice list in which there is a seat available (vacancy) on that rank under the student category.

The seat allotment process factors in the seat matrix and category wise merit list of the applicants. Seat matrix shows the number of vacant seats under different reservation categories and quotas. The category wise merit list is prepared on basis of student’s reservation status and category. There are seats reserved on basis of vertical reservation as well as horizontal reservation.

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Different reservations and quotas in Medical Admission Counselling

In all medical admissions, there is provision of reservation of seats for candidates belonging to different categories. The seats are reserved for students belonging to EWS (10%), OBC (27%), SC (15%) & ST (7.5%). In addition, there is a provision of 5% seat reservation with in each category for PwD candidates. The reservation of seats and categories may differ widely among states for state medical admission counselling. It is important to know that there is NO category reservation in deemed medical universities.

In state medical admission counselling, the provision of reservation is governed bt respective state reservation policy. There are many more differential reservation categories at state level. In addition to constitutional category reservation, there may be seats reserved for female candidates, children of war widows and armed forces personnel, minorities, ESI beneficiaries, wards of Freedom fighters and area specific reservations.

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In addition to category reservations, there is provision of some specialized quota in medical college seats such as NRI quota. In most of the deemed medical universities, 15% of total medical seats are allotted to NRI or NRI sponsored applicants. These seats are offered to NRI or NRI sponsored candidates who want to pursue medical education in India. The provision of NRI seats is also available in many states government and private medical colleges.

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Rounds in Medical Admission Counselling

Generally medical admission counselling has 4 rounds but some states may fill in all the medical seats after 3 rounds and if some seats are still vacant after 4 rounds then a special round 5 may also be conducted. Each counselling round is governed by its unique rules and regulations. It is important to be aware and familiar with these rules and regulations to optimize the outcome of medical admission counselling.

During the initial 2-3 rounds of medical admission counselling, the seats are allotted to students and students are also given an opportunity to shift their allotted college. If a student want to change the allotted seat from a college A to college B, then he/she will have to do the college choice filling in the next round and if the seat in college B is available on his/her rank and category, then he/she will be allotted a seat in college B and seat in college A will be considered vacant and will be allotted to another candidate.

After the initial 2-3 rounds, the students are not allowed any shifting of seat. They are not allowed to participate in last rounds and only new allotments are offered to fresh applicants. This freezing of seat is done to ensure that all applicants get a fair chance of seat allotment in the desired medical college and no seat is left vacant. In the last rounds, the category and quota reservation seats may be also converted into open merit seats.

The medical admission counselling process in India is a highly centralized, transparent and regulated process however it is very complex, extensive and confusing for students and parents. In the absence of right strategy and guidance, the student may end up losing the opportunity of better seat and/or may suffer financial losses. One things is sure that there is absolutely no room for corruption in medical admissions in India now.

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