The first round of NEET PG counselling for medical and dental seats in Tamil Nadu began on April 1.

In this round, 912 seats are up for grabs in various courses, including 558 MD programs, 352 MS programs and one PG diploma in Diabetology. For the next three days, the counselling sessions will take place and students will be matched into a program based on their performance in the NEET PG exam and the subsequent rank they received. Out of around 11,000 students who qualified, reportedly 9,649 students have applied for counseling.

The Directorate of Medical Education has uploaded  online the planned schedules for the counseling sessions’ first round which will go on until Thursday. The counselling sessions are being held at the ground floor lecture hall of the Government Multi-Super Specialty Hospital in Chennai’s Omandurar Estate area.

This round of counseling will allocate the seats from postgraduate degree and diploma courses in various government medical colleges throughout the state. In addition, the sessions will also be held for admission to government and self-financing seats in medical and dental programs throughout Tamil Nadu.

In the first round of counseling, those holding a higher rank will first be taken in. Then during the second round, candidates look through the remaining seats and make their selections accordingly. In the third and last ‘mop-up’ round, those individuals who are rank holders but were not eligible for seats in the first two rounds, are left to look at the remaining choices and pick from their options.

The All-India Quota seats are filled in the first session, the State Quota session starts after the nationwide quota is filled. Once counseling is done, most courses will begin in May. The state currently has a little over 1758 seats, of which 50 percent are reserved under the All-India Quota. Seats from this group which go unfilled in the first round of counselling are then handed over to the state quota. The counseling for the State Quota will take place in mid-April.

Students who don’t get their first choice during the initial counseling sessions then can attend the second and third rounds. If they still don’t get their choice, they then have the option for attending the counselling sessions for the State Quota and can also try to acquire a seat via Management Quota. Education activist Jayaprakash Gandhi earlier explained to TNM that should a student not get their choice of seat, they often do turn to the State and Management Quotas. If they still don’t get their preferred course, their next option is to wait until the following year, and write the exam again.

This story was originally published on The News Minute and is reprinted here with permission. It can be viewed on https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/first-round-neet-counselling-begins-pg-medical-and-dental-courses-tn-99291