NEET UG 2026 Counselling Date: With the announcement of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) result 2026 on July 16, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) is expected to start the undergraduate medical admission soon. The committee will release the schedule for the NEET UG 2026 counselling at mcc.nic.in. Last year, the committee started the first round of the NEET UG counselling on July 21.
With the declaration of the NEET result, the NTA had stated: "The result has been declared in time so that the medical-admission and counselling calendar for candidates stays on track." Around 20 lakh candidates appeared for the NEET UG 2026 at 5,440 centres in 551 cities in India and 14 cities abroad, as per official records. Of these, 11.21 lakh candidates have qualified for admission to undergraduate medical, dental, AYUSH and allied programmes, the official announcement stated.
The NEET UG 2026 counselling schedule will outline key dates for all rounds of counselling under both State and All India Quota (AIQ) seats, including Deemed and Central Universities. The counselling process will be conducted in four rounds, based on previous years' trend: Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 (Mop-Up Round), and the Stray Vacancy Round. During the counselling rounds, candidates must register online, pay the required counselling fee, and fill in and lock their preferred choices of colleges and courses.
After each round, the seats are allotted based on the applicant's NEET rank, category, reservation norms, preferences, and seat availability. Candidates who secure any seat during the counselling process must report to the allotted college for document verification and admission.
More than 58 per cent of the qualified candidates are women. The majority of the top-performing candidates are between 17 and 19 years of age. The highest score of 715 out of 720 was obtained jointly by Aryan Gupta (Punjab) and Panshul Bansal (Haryana), the NTA announced.
