The official timeline for NEET 2019 has been released. National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test 2019 is a flagship medical entrance test of the country. It is the entrance test for all MBBS admissions in India, except for colleges like AIIMS and JIPMER.
As per the formal announcements on this matter, the exam is all set to be held on May 5, 2019. With the announcement of a single date for the exam, it is also clear that NEET 2019 will be held only once in a year, unlike JEE 2019. NEET Application Form will be available from November 30, 2018. It is for the first time that CBSE will not be conducting NEET exam. National Testing Agency, which is the latest development in entrance test regime of the country, will be the conducting body of NEET 2019. Thus there are a lot of changes expected.
Although there were parties arguing that the exam should be conducted in an online mode only, and further should be conducted twice in a year, but NTA has refuted such expectations. It is said that the agency has acted upon the recommendations given by the Ministry of Health, which was against both of these changes.
The Ministry said that making the exam online will be detrimental to rural students, which form a significant part of the test takers. Further, having two exams in a year can complicate the processes a bit and can increase pressure on candidates. Thus, NTA seems to listen to both the recommendations and has acted accordingly.
Important Dates
With the announcement of the test dates, NTA has announced some other important dates for the exam as well. The Application Form for the exam will be made available from 30th of November, 2018. The link for the application will be made available on the official website of NTA, i.e. www.nta.ac.in. However, an official notification is still awaited and it might get released around 1st or 2nd week of November 2018.
Further, candidates will be able to access their admit cards from 15th of April, 2019. The next step is the exam itself which will be conducted on 5th of May, 2019. Candidates will have to wait exactly a month for the result of the exam, as it is likely to be released on 5th of June, 2019.
However, no official timeline regarding the process after the result, i.e. counselling and seat allocation has been released yet. Since there has not been any major change in the timeline for NEET 2019, candidates can expect further dates to remain similar as well.
Facts to Remember
Along with these details, candidates must be aware of a few other details as well. The first of these is that NEET is not going to be conducted in an online mode. It will be a pen and paper-based exam just like last year.
Although the official notification is not yet released, the syllabus and examination pattern are also expected to remain the same as the previous year. Further, there is no change anticipated in the eligibility criteria as well.
Further, the availability of languages (or medium) for NEET 2019 is also expected to remain the same. Along with English, Hindi and Urdu, the exam is expected to be available in 8 vernacular languages.
All these anticipations will materialize once the official advertisement for the exam gets released. For the moment, students will be eagerly waiting for the NEET Application Form to be released soon so that they can register for the exam. However, until the notification releases, students should not get distracted and keep doing hard work to strengthen their preparation.