Over 18 lakh candidates register for NEET-2022, records significant jump from last year 

The number of registrations for the NEET medical entrance exam has surpassed 18 lakh this year, representing a significant increase of over 2.5 lakh since 2021.

According to official data, over 18.72 lakh candidates have registered for the National Eligibility Cumulative Entrance Test (NEET), with over 10.64 lakh being women and 8.07 lakh being men.

On July 17, the pan-India exam will be held in 13 languages. Last year, the NEET-undergraduate exam was held on September 12, with over 95 percent of registered candidates taking it.

Over 15.44 lakh people had appeared for the exam, which was held in 3,858 locations. At least 8.70 lakh students had qualified out of this group.

This year, 771 candidates are foreigners, 910 are non-resident Indians, and 647 are Overseas Citizen of India card holders. The most candidates chose English as their exam language, followed by Hindi and Tamil.

NEET-UG is the qualifying entrance exam for admission to Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS), Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery (BAMS), Bachelor of Siddha Medicine and Surgery (BSMS), Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery (BUMS), and Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) programmes, as well as BSc (H) Nursing courses.

Maharashtra has received the most registrations (2.5 lakh), followed by Uttar Pradesh (2.1 lakh). Karnataka (1.3 lakh), Kerala (1.2 lakh), Rajasthan (1.4 lakh), and Tamil Nadu are the other four states with over one lakh registrations (1.4 lakh). In fact, nearly 55% of all candidates have registered for the exam from these six states. And, if the three states – Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal – with over 90,000 registrations each are counted, 70 percent of the candidates come from nine of the 37 states/UTs.

Kota (37,774), Patna (36,114), and Jaipur were the three most popular cities for taking the exams this year (34,090).