Breaking: All candidates now eligible for NEET SS 2024 stray round counselling
NEET SS 2024 Cutoff
New Delhi: The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has reduced the qualifying percentile for NEET SS 2024 stray round counselling.
Issuing a notice on 14.07.2025, NBEMS announced that all the candidates who had appeared for the NEET SS-2024 exam with an eligible broad specialty degree (MD/MS/DNB) shall be allowed to participate in the Stray round of NEET-SS Super Specialty Counselling 2024.
NBE's announcement comes after the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in its letter dated 10th July 2025, decided to allow all these candidates to appear in the stray round.
NEET-SS 2024 was conducted on 29th and 30th March 2025 and the result was declared by NBEMS on 25th April 2025. Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that, pointing out that more than 1500 super-specialty seats (DM/MCh/DrNB) were lying vacant even after two rounds of National Eligibility-Entrance Test Super Speciality (NEET-SS) 2024 Counselling, doctors had urged the authorities, including the National Board of Examinations (NBE), to lower the cut-off before the next round of counselling.
Earlier, the 3rd round of NEET SS counselling was scheduled to commence from 24th June, 2025. However, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) had rescheduled it.
Now, NBE has announced the decision to lower the cut-off in its notice issued today.
"The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India vide letter No. U.12021/09/2025-MEC dated 10th July 2025 has allowed all the candidates who had appeared for NEET-SS 2024 exam with an eligible broad specialty degree (MD/MS/DNB) to participate in the Stray round of NEET-SS Super Specialty Counseling 2024," NBE mentioned in the notice dated 14.06.2025.
"The information bulletin of NEET-SS 2024 should therefore be read accordingly," it added.
However, NBE clarified that there is no change in NEET-SS 2024 Question Paper Group Specific rank as declared on 25th April 2025. "Candidature is purely provisional subject to fulfilment of eligibility criteria as mentioned in NEET-SS 2024 Information Bulletin and verification of Face ID/Biometric wherever required," added NBE.
"Candidates are advised to remain in touch with the website of Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) www.mcc.nic.in for the latest information related to the upcoming NEET-SS 2024 stray round counselling," it further mentioned.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that back in 2023, taking note of more than 1000 super speciality seats lying vacant after the completion of two counselling rounds, the authorities had reduced the eligibility cut-off for NEET SS 2022 admissions from 50 percentile to 20 percentile. Therefore, the candidates who had scored 20 percentile and above in NEET SS 2022 were made eligible to participate in the "special mop-up round".
Again, last year, taking note of hundreds of vacant super-speciality seats, the NBEMS had announced the decision to lower the cut-off percentile for NEET-SS 2023 exam to zero across all categories. With this, all the candidates who completed their PG degrees and appeared in the NEET-SS 2023 exam were considered eligible to participate in further rounds of counselling to fill up the vacant super speciality seats.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had also taken note of the issue of vacant super speciality seats. While considering a batch of pleas filed by successful candidates who had abandoned NEET-SS courses, the Supreme Court took cognisance of the issue and directed the Central Government to hold a meeting with the stakeholders of all States/UTs and private medical colleges to fill up the vacancies for the upcoming academic year.
To view the NBE notice, click on the link below:
https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/nbemsnotice-294517.pdf
Also Read: Over 1500 Seats Vacant! Doctors Urge NBE to Lower NEET SS Cutoff
