NEET PG is a national medical entrance exam for postgraduate medical admissions. The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) conducts it.
According to the statistics, the examination was scheduled for 2,73,096 candidates on August 30, 2026. Of these, 2,63,544 appeared for the examination, while 2,416 candidates took the re-examination on September 5 after technical disruptions at two centres in Jaipur.
On October 23, the Medical Counselling Committee released the NEET PG 2026 Round 1 provisional seat allotment list. MCC subsequently published the final Round 1 allotment result dated October 24, 2026.
The list gives information about the allotted postgraduate medical seats across different specialities, institutions and reservation categories.
The provisional allotment list was reported to cover 28,723 candidates in Round 1 counselling, with MD General Medicine and MD Radio-Diagnosis emerging as the top choices for high-ranking candidates.
The allotment list is not the final cut-off list. The opening and closing ranks in an allotment list reflect the ranks of candidates allotted seats in a particular counselling round. They should not be confused with NEET PG's minimum qualifying marks.
The opening allotment list showcases the specialities that were secured by the highest rankers of NEET PG.
Among the earliest allocations are several sought-after clinical specialties, such as:
The candidate who secured All India Rank (AIR) 1 was provisionally allocated a seat at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Dr RML Hospital, New Delhi, in the MD General Medicine department.
The highest-ranked allotment for MD Radio-Diagnosis is at AIR 7 at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi.
The MD Dermatology department first appeared at AIR 12 with a seat at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital.
For MS Orthopaedics, the earliest allotment is recorded at AIR 30 at BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad.
The initial seat for MS Obstetrics and Gynaecology appears at AIR 44 at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital.
The MD Pediatrics specialty debuts on the list at AIR 70 at Government Medical College, Kozhikode.
For MS General Surgery, the first seat is claimed at AIR 73 at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Dr RML Hospital, New Delhi.
These specialty-wise ranks are taken from the original analysis of the provisional allotment list. They should be retained as final-result findings only after being cross-checked against the official MCC final allotment result.
According to the statistics, General Medicine was the most chosen department and dominated the highest rankers in the provisional list. Candidates who secured AIR 1, 3, 4 and 6 secured seats in the same department.
General Medicine and Radiology claimed 79 of the top 100 ranks. According to the list, these two departments took 377 of the top 500 ranks and 706 of the top 1000 ranks.
According to the official data, General Medicine was the most popular choice at every level and was picked by nearly half of the top 500 candidates.
This was closely followed by MD Radio-Diagnosis at AIR 7 and MD Dermatology, which entered the selection sequence within the top 15 ranks. However, Radiology was one of the hardest departments to get into for the candidates.
Nuclear medicine had fewer seats, yet it was one of the most chosen departments amongst the toppers. There are only 13 AIQ seats available for the said department, out of which 2 were immediately chosen by candidates within the top 100 ranks. Both the candidates chose Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai at ranks 14 and 81. It was seen that Nuclear Medicine was the fastest branch to completely run out of seats.
To secure a government All India Quota seat in Radiology, you had to be in the top 1,140 ranks to get the first half of the available seats. For General Medicine, that halfway cutoff was much more lenient.
This official data shows a preference for particular medical departments; however, it can not determine whether overall demand has fluctuated compared to 2025.
The strong preference for Radio-Diagnosis also raises questions about how medical graduates view the specialty's future amid advances in artificial intelligence. Radiologist and medical educator Dr. Sumer Sethi, Radiologist, argued in a post on X (formerly Twitter), on October 25 that younger doctors may view AI as a tool that supports radiologists rather than a technology that makes them redundant.
However, Round 1 allotment trends alone cannot establish why candidates prefer Radiology or whether they are less concerned about AI-related changes to the specialty.
Another observation concerned the representation of General Surgery among highly ranked candidates. Dr. Kamlesh Darji, a pathologist at AIIMS, New Delhi, wrote in a X post on October 25 that only around 40 of the top 1,000 rankers had reportedly chosen General Surgery. He called for the government and medical institutions to prioritise reforms in surgical training.
The figure should be verified against the final allotment data, using the same quota and seat categories as the original analysis. The distribution of seats in one counselling round does not, by itself, establish why candidates chose or did not choose a specialty.
According to the list, top rankers mostly avoided non-clinical departments. However, the Pathology department was the most popular amongst the non-clinical subjects. Pathology was chosen by one candidate at rank 961 at Maulana Azad Medical College.
Within the top 20,000 ranks, pathology secured 89 out of the 137 non-clinical seats.
Other paraclinical branches included community medicine, pharmacology, microbiology and forensic medicine.
Distribution of the Round 1 list for particular quotas was:
13,471 seats were under the All India Quota. 9067 seats were under the DNB Quota. Deemed universities had 5,158 seats under their quota, and the remaining 1,027 seats came from seven smaller quotas that were led by Delhi University and IP University.
Top 100:
Out of the top 100 candidates, the provisional list features the top 96. Most of these seats were taken by MS or MD candidates. However, the candidate at AIR 91 chose a DNB General Medicine seat at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Delhi.
Top 500:
Out of the top 500 candidates, around 469 listed candidates from the provisional list chose between 9 specialities. 2 candidates chose the Ophthalmology department. 16 candidates chose DNB seats. One candidate at rank 476 chose a DDVL diploma in Dermatology at Maulana Azad Medical College.
Top 1000:
Out of the 1000, the 918 listed ranks were chosen across 15 different specialities. Six new branches appeared for the first time: Anaesthesia (3 picks), Psychiatry (2 picks), and Plastic Surgery (a 6-year DNB course), Respiratory Medicine, Radiation Oncology, and Pathology, with 1 pick each.
Amongst all the branches, the preclinical branches were the least preferred. Biochemistry was chosen at rank 12, 378, Physiology at 16,634 and Anatomy at rank 16,690.
The data clearly show that top-ranking medical students overwhelmingly prefer clinical fields over non-clinical specialities. Paraclinical and preclinical options act as secondary choices, representing only about one in six total medical seat allotments.
(ARC/MSM)