NEET UG 2026 records second-lowest attendance under NTA, but highest-ever qualifying cut-off
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) or NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, conducted after the National Testing Agency (NTA) cancelled the original May 3 test over an alleged paper leak, has produced two contrasting records: the second-lowest attendance since NTA began conducting the country’s largest medical entrance examination in 2019, and the highest qualifying cut-off ever recorded. Upalakshya Goyal and his family members celebrate after he bags All India Rank 3 (AIR 3) in the NEET-UG 2026 examination, scoring 711 out of 720, in Jaipur on Friday. (ANI Video Grab) Data released by the NTA on Thursday night, along with the results, show that only 1.999 million of the 2.280 million registered candidates appeared for the June 21 re-examination, translating into an attendance rate of 87.72%. This was 9 percentage points lower than the 96.72% attendance recorded in the original May 3 examination, with 205,140 fewer candidates turning up for the re-test. At the same time, the minimum qualifying score for the General/Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category climbed to a record 213 marks, the highest since …






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