By Gaurav Tyagi, Medical Counsellor, Career Xpert 

The results of NEET PG Counseling’s Second Round have been announced, as thousands of aspirants still wait to get themselves placed into colleges. The major question for these aspirants now is, what will be available (in terms of seats) before the mop-up round? The Second Round will determine most aspirants’ final seat matrix, as the majority of upgrades, withdrawals, and category adjustments will happen in this round. As soon as the Second Round is complete, the remaining timeframes of the Counseling Process will be much more restrictive to get seated (although some opportunities will still be available) and therefore more competitive. 

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Following the Second Round, the primary manner in which the Seat Matrix will change will be through candidates upgrading their Round 1 allotments. When a candidate upgrades to a different college or specialty, the allotment that the candidate received during the first round will become vacant and re-enter the pool of available seats. Some seats will not be filled because a candidate will not report to their allotted seat, has document problems, or, in a very limited case, has disqualified. Additionally, many of the seats that are classified as ‘reserved’ based upon categories typically will convert to ‘general’ seats if a candidate from the reserved category cannot be found. This drops a minimal number of additional vacancies to be filled before the Mop-Up Round occurs. 

Vacancies in government medical colleges are limited in number after the second round of counseling. At this time, most of the clinical branches with high demand, such as general medicine, radiology, dermatology, orthopaedics, and pediatrics, have almost filled up to capacity. The remaining seats generally available are in non-clinical/para-clinical branches, newly created colleges, or colleges located in regions that have relatively lower preferences by candidates applying for medical education. Open category candidates have very few opportunities to secure a top government seat during mop-up and will likely obtain such seats only in lesser desired specialty areas, but at least some opportunities are possible. 

Private medical colleges as well as deemed universities comprise a large part of the vacant seats that will remain available at the end of the mop-up round. The high price of tuition, the obligation to provide service bonds to the college, and/or the location of the college prevent many candidates from pursuing educational opportunities at private medical colleges. This creates a large number of unfilled seats in private medical colleges. Most of the preclinical subject seats will be available at this time, as will diplomas and DNB seats. However, fewer Core Clinical MD/MS branches will have unfilled seats remaining at this time when compared to pre-clinical/para-clinical graduation and diploma programs. 

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There may be many open Medical College seats in NEET PG that were not filled after Round 2 of the Counselling process, according to historical trends, indicating that 10-15% of all available Medical college seats may remain unfilled. This could be somewhat misleading, as these vacancies tend to belong primarily to non-government medical colleges, and as such, their numbers tend to mask the actual numbers of vacancies in government medical colleges, with many government colleges listing only a small number of unallocated seats after the completion of counselling, in addition to being mainly assigned to certain categories. 

Candidates entering the mop-up round must take a proactive stance on this final opportunity. Candidates need to fill out their choices flexibly, have a realistic view of their potential seat assignment based upon the availability of medical school seats, and evaluate the colleges that they wish to apply to, along with an informed review of the branches that will be available for selection at these colleges. Even though candidates have lost several opportunities after Round 2, there is still a final opportunity for many aspiring candidates to gain a medical school seat to continue with their professional goals. 

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