What Is NEET?
NEET or National Entrance cum Eligibility Test is an entrance examination for medical courses like MBBS, BDS, and Post Graduation in both government and personal medical colleges. The NTA – National Testing Agency, the regulatory body for NEET UG Exam, conducts it per annum in various parts of India. This objective question based (MCQ) entrance test is carried in an offline mode with nearly 11-13 lakhs candidates applying per annum . the newest news indicates that the amount of applications received for NEET 2020 is almost 15.93 lakhs.
On April 28th, 2016, the Honourable Supreme Court approved the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test(NEET) as a single-level examination. This developed three days before the AIPMT 2016 exam had created havoc amongst medical aspirants who were studying for various medical entrance exams throughout India. Here are the important highlights of NEET 2020.
NEET Eligibility Criteria 2020
The National Testing Agency has prescribed the eligibility criteria for NEET 2020. All those who wish to apply for the entrance test are advised to check if they fit into the criteria specified by NTA.
Candidates who fulfill the following parameters are eligible for NEET 2020:
Nationality:
- Indian Nationals,
- Non-Resident Indians (NRIs)
- Overseas Citizen of India (OCI)
- Persons with Indian Origin (PIO)
- Foreign Nationals
Age Limit:
- The minimum age of a candidate as on December 31, 2020, should be 17 years
- The rule specifying the maximum age limit of the candidate was challenged last year in the court of law. Thus, there is no upper age limit as of now and candidates older than 25 years of age applying for NEET 2020 will be provisionally admitted subject to the ruling of the High Court of Delhi.
Minimum qualification:
- Candidate must have cleared Class 12 or equivalent from a recognized institute
- Candidates who are appearing for Class 12 or equivalent in summer 2020 can also apply for NEET 2020.
- Candidates who have completed Class 12 or equivalent from an open school are also eligible
Mandatory subjects:
- Candidate must have cleared Class 12 or equivalent with Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
- Candidates who have passed Class 12 or equivalent with Biology as an additional subject are also eligible
Minimum marks required in the qualifying examination:
- General category: 50%
- PWD category: 45%
- SC/ST/OBC: 40%
NEET 2020: Important Dates
The important dates for NEET 2020 are mentioned below:
| Events | Important Dates |
| Release of Application Form | December 2, 2019 |
| Last date to submit the Application Form | December 31, 2019 |
| Payment of Application Fee | 1st Week of December 2019 |
| Correction in Application Form | 15th to 31st January 2020 |
| Release date of admit card | To be announced |
| NEET 2020 Exam Date | To be announced |
| Duration of Exam | 3 hours |
| Release date of OMR and Answer keys | To be announced |
| Announcement of Results | To be announced |
| Counselling Procedure- 1 Registration begins, choice filling, indicative seats | To be announced |
| Result of counselling Procedure-1 | To be announced |
| Counselling Procedure- 2 New Registration, Payment Facility, | To be announced |
| Result of counselling Procedure-2 | To be announced |
NEET 2020 Syllabus
The NEET syllabus 2020 will be based on the common syllabus which is prescribed by the Medical Council of India (MCI). The NEET syllabus will include topics from Zoology, Botany, Physics and Chemistry subjects. The syllabus will be published after the review of different state syllabi as well as NCERT, CBSE, and COBSEW and will be based on the syllabus of Class 11 and 12. The Medical Council Of India shall release syllabus for NEET 2020 by 2nd December 2019.
NEET 2020 Highlights
| Important Highlights of NEET 2020 | |
| Exam Name | NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) |
| Conducting Body | NTA (National Testing Agency) |
| Mode of Exam | Pen-paper based |
| Expected number of Applicants | Around 16 lakhs |
| Exam Duration | 3 hours |
| Seats Offered | Admission of around 1 lakh MBBS and BDS seats under 85% State quota seats and 15% All India seats |
| Courses Offered | MBBS and BDS |
NEET 2020 Application Process
NEET aspirants can get access to the application form for NEET UG 2020 on December 2nd, 2019. Candidates can apply for NEET 2020 only through the online process.
Following are the simple steps:
- Go to the official website.
- Register by giving the name, mobile number, email id and other details.
- Fill in the registration form.
- Upload the scanned copies of the required documents in the prescribed size and format only.
- The important step which is the payment of the application fee, the fee payment can be done in online and offline mode.
- The confirmation page will be displayed, and the candidate needs to take the print out of the duly filled application form for future reference.
Documents Required To Apply For NEET UG 2020:
- Photograph of the candidate with these specifications – File size 10-100 Kb in JPG format. The photograph should be of postcard size with a white background along with the name of the applicant and the date printed just below the photograph(compulsorily)
- Signature of the candidate with these specifications – File size 3-20 Kb in JPG format. Signature should be in upper case with black ink on a white background
The NEET 2020 application fee amount is mentioned below:
| Category | Fee Amount | Fee Amount (With Late Fee) |
| GC/OBC | INR 1400 | INR 2800 (1400+1400) |
| SC/ST/PwD | INR 750 | INR 2150 (750+1400) |
Application Fee for NEET 2020
The application fee can be paid either through online process or offline process
- Online method – Credit card/Debit card/Paytm/Net banking
- Offline method – Bank Challan
NEET 2020 Admit Card
Initially, the NTA was to release the NEET 2020 Admit card on March 27, 2020, but the release has been delayed. The admit card release date and the NEET exam date shall be announced soon. The following table renders details regarding the admit card:
| Events | Corresponding Date |
| NEET Admit card 2020 available to download | Postponed Soon to be announced |
| Last date to download admit card | Postponed Soon to be announced |
Steps to download the admit card:
- NEET aspirants can download the admit card from the official website (http://www.ntaneet.nic.in/)
- Select NEET admit card 2020
- Fill the required details – application number, date of birth, security pin
- Check for details entered and click on submit
- The screen displays your admit card for NEET
- Verify details
- Download your admit card
NEET 2020 Application Form
Listed below are some important dates related to NEET 2020 Application form:
| Events | Corresponding Date |
| Application Form – Release date | 2nd December 2019 |
| Last date to fill the application form | 31st December 2019 |
| NEET Application form – corrections(if any) | 1st April 2020 till 14th April 2020 |
- Aspirants will be able to fill NEET 2020 application form through the online mode
- The NTA shall release the application form on 2nd December, 2019
- You can fill the form only once. Filling up more than one application form can cause forms to get cancelled
- Please fill the form before 31st December 2019
- Please keep the documents ready before filling the application form. Candidates will have to submit signature and recent passport size photos in the suggested format only to avoid any disparity. (Please check our section – Documents Required To Apply For NEET 2020for more details on this)
- At the time of registration to get the login credentials, candidates must provide a working mobile number and active email-id.
NEET 2020 Exam Pattern
The NEET UG 2020 Exam Pattern is as mentioned below:
| NEET Exam Pattern 2020 | |
| Number of Questions | 180 MCQs (45 questions each from 4 subjects) |
| Subjects | Physics, Chemistry, Biology (Botany and Zoology) |
| Type of questions | Objective type ( 4 options with 1 correct answer) |
| Language | English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati and Assamese. |
| Mode of exam | Offline mode only (Pen-paper based) |
| Duration | 180 minutes (3 hours) |
| Marking scheme | Correct +4, incorrect -1 |
| Total Marks | 720 |
NEET Question Papers
The conducting body for NEET, the NTA (National Testing Agency) will release the code-wise question paper during the offline entrance examination. NEET question papers will be available in two national languages and nine regional languages. While filling the application form, candidates will be asked to select their language of preference for the question paper. List of languages are as given below:
- English
- Hindi
- Marathi
- Bengali
- Gujarati
- Assamese
- Tamil
- Telugu
- Oriya
- Kannada
- Urdu
NEET Trends
NEET exam is considered to be one of the biggest and the most sought after exams for medical aspirants with the number of applicants increasing every year. This year it is anticipated to be around 1.6 million candidates. As there is ultimate competition in the number of candidates applying this year, naturally the difficulty level is ought to be high. Hence, this time around applicants should concentrate more on conceptual based questions compared to practice-based. Also, one should not forget that the answer may be simpler than the way questions are framed(tricky questions).
All in all, aspirants are required to focus more on their preparation by referring to previous years’ question papers, sample papers, being well-versed with mock tests and having a clear idea of the syllabus.
NEET 2020 Exam Centres
Aspirants choose their exam centre when filling the NEET application form. Out of the 100+ options, they get to pick three cities from the list of exam centres in decreasing order of their preference.
| State | Region | City |
| Andaman & Nicobar | Bay of Bengal | Port Blair |
| Andhra Pradesh | Southern | Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam |
| Arunachal Pradesh | North-eastern | Itanagar |
| Assam | North-eastern | Dibrugarh, Guwahati |
| Bihar | Eastern | Gaya, Patna |
| Chandigarh | Northern | Chandigarh |
| Chhattisgarh | Central | Raipur |
| Dadra & Nagar Haveli | Western | Dadra & Nagar Haveli |
| Daman & Diu | Western | Daman |
| Delhi | Northern | Delhi (Central/ East/ North/ South/ West) |
| Goa | Western | Panaji |
| Gujarat | Western | Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara |
| Haryana | Northern | Faridabad, Gurgaon |
| Himachal Pradesh | Northern | Hamirpur, Shimla |
| Jammu & Kashmir | Northern | Jammu, Srinagar |
| Jharkhand | Eastern | Bokaro, Ranchi |
| Karnataka | Southern | Bangalore, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Mangalore |
| Kerala | Southern | Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Trivandrum |
| Lakshadweep | Arabian Sea | Kavaratti |
| Madhya Pradesh | Central | Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Jabalpur, Ujjain |
| Maharashtra | Western | Aurangabad, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nasik, Pune, Thane |
| Manipur | Northeastern | Imphal |
| Meghalaya | Northeastern | Shillong |
| Mizoram | Northeastern | Aizawl |
| Nagaland | Northeastern | Dimapur, Kohima |
| Odisha | Eastern | Behrampur, Bhubaneshwar, Rourkela |
| Puducherry | Southern | Puducherry |
| Punjab | Northern | Bhatinda, Jalandhar |
| Rajasthan | Western | Ajmer, Jaipur, Kota, Udaipur |
| Sikkim | Eastern | Gangtok |
| Tamil Nadu | Southern | Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem, Tiruchirapalli |
| Telangana | Southern | Hyderabad, Warangal |
| Tripura | Northeastern | Agartala |
| Uttarakhand | Northern | Dehradun, Haldwani |
| Uttar Pradesh | Northern | Bareilly, Ghaziabad, Jhansi, Lucknow, Noida, Varanasi |
| West Bengal | Eastern | Durgapur, Kolkata, Siliguri |
NEET Cut-off
The cut-off is the least score required to qualify for the entrance examination. The cut-off for NEET Exam will be published by the NTA in the month of June 2020 along with the result declaration. The list will contain the All India category wise ranks of the qualified candidates. According to that, all the participating states will prepare their own merit list for the process of counselling. The NEET cut off for each category this year has shot up by 15 marks. The NEET cut-off percentile will be declared on the scorecard in addition to the cut-off score and the number of applicants. The candidates who have cleared the cut-off will be required to then register themselves for the NEET 2020 Counselling process which is scheduled to take place a few weeks after the results are announced. Listed below are some of the statistics from NEET 2019:
