A total of 2,75,627 students took the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET) 2016 for admission in medical/dental courses and a total of 2,62,133 appeared for it to go for engineering. The eligible candidates for medical/dental courses are 46,797 this year.
This year, the medical CET pass percentage dipped to 16.98 from last year's 20. Officials have said that the last-minute announcement that state-level CET marks would not be considered for medical admissions put students under pressure.
In the engineering category, the top scorer is Chinmay Ghanekar of Vile Parle's Sathaye College with 199 out of 200 in physics, chemistry and mathematics. In the medical category, the top scorer is Rishabh Rawat, a student of Bandra's Indian Education Society junior college, with 200/200 in physics, chemistry and biology.
According to Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), no one has got zero; 53 candidates scored between 191 and 200, 306 secured between 181 and 190, 713 between 171 and 180, 1,085 candidates scored between 161 and 170, 1,589 between 151 and 160, and 22 got up to 10 marks. This year, the number of seats for engineering is 1,38,741; last year it was 1,53,867. For medical courses, there are 2,810 seats in government medical colleges this year.
From next year, medical/dental admissions will happen only through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), which is based on Stds XI and XII syllabus.
Last month, after president Pranab Mukherjee signed the NEET ordinance, education minister Vinod Tawde had held a press conference and declared that he would soon conduct a meeting of education experts of secondary board officials to discuss what changes need to be made in the syllabus to prepare state board students for NEET.
Students preparing for MHT-CET were under tremendous pressure this year after the Supreme Court ruled that state-level CET marks would not be considered for medical/dental admissions.
Directorate of Medical Education and Research director Dr. Pravin Shingare said, "Six days before the MHT-CET on May 5 students got to know that their CET marks would not be considered for admission to medical/dental courses. This disappointed many who had prepared for the whole year; they stopped studying for MHT-CET. That can be seen in the overall result that has dipped."
—Inputs by Neetu Saini
2,75,627 students appeared for admission to medical/dental courses
2,62,133 students appeared for admission to engineering courses
