The National Testing Agency (NTA) of India today released the results of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) NEET 2026. The agency stated in an official announcement that the result declaration was made on time to avoid disrupting the medical admission and counseling schedule for participants.
The NEET (UG) 2026 exam was conducted for nearly two million applicants. The process covered 5440 centers in 551 cities across India, as well as 14 cities abroad. Among the participants who successfully qualified for undergraduate programs in medicine, dentistry, AYUSH, and related fields, there were 1,121 thousand individuals.
Scorecards for all candidates are available on the official website neet.nta.nic.in. Furthermore, the NTA website publishes a complete list of leaders, top students by state, winners by categories (SC, ST, OBC-NCL, Gen-EWS, PwBD, and PwD), as well as qualifying scores by category and participation by language.
Most candidates who achieved high scores are between 17 and 19 years old. It is particularly noted that over 93 percent of the 138 candidates who scored above 690 out of 720 took the NEET (UG) for the first time.
Information about the upcoming changes is important for applicants preparing for NEET-UG and their parents. The government plans to conduct a large-scale reform of the entire examination system, which is a significant transformation.
According to media reports and sources from the Ministry of Education, the National Testing Agency (NTA) is developing a special plan for NEET. Instead of the traditional format where 22-23 million students took the exam in one day in one session, this approach will be abolished starting with NEET UG 2027. The new plan provides for conducting the exam not in one day, but over five to six days, dividing it into multiple sessions on different days.
The second key element of this plan is the shift from a paper test to a computer-based test (CBT). This is being done to minimize the risk of material leakage that exists when using OMR sheets and printing tests. With CBT, the test remains completely 'digitally locked' and opens on the student's screen only a few minutes before the exam begins, minimizing the probability of leaks.
To address issues of malpractice previously recorded in private schools and colleges, the government is reducing the number of examination centers from 5000 to 1000. These new centers will be located exclusively in reliable government institutions, such as Central Schools and Navodaya schools.
To alleviate student concerns regarding potential unevenness in exam difficulty, NTA will apply a 'normalization process.' This method is similar to what is used in JEE Main and assesses not the absolute score, but the student's percentage relative to the results of other participants in their session, ensuring fairness.
It is important to note that the curriculum for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology will remain unchanged. However, students will need to start practicing with computers instead of filling out bubbles. These reforms are based on the recommendations of Committee K. Radhakrishnan, former head of ISRO, with the aim of improving the entire NTA system by October 2026.
