Pros and Cons of NEET 2024

NEET exam is am entrance exam conducted for candidates who want to pursue MBBS, BDS, AYUSH or Nursing courses. Formerly called AIPMT, its reform took place in 2013 when it was renamed ‘NEET UG’. Additionally, clearing one of the most difficult exams on a national level is a feat in and of itself. But that brings up many valid questions such as, "what are the benefits of NEET exams?’ ‘What are the cons of NEET exams?’, to get clarity on such questions, students are advised to go through the pros and cons of NEET 2024.

Pros and Cons of NEET 2024: Pros of NEET Exam

There are several pros of the NEET Exam after AIPMT was replaced. This common exam now has become easier in terms of the earlier versions where a student had to write different medical entrance tests. The NEET exam benefits you can get if you're writing this exam are given below:

1. No effect on reservations

NEET rankings are conducted based on the exam scores a student secures, so it has no effect on the reservation policies. If or when it is mandated by their state governments, the states themselves could apply their old reservation system. However, the rankings would still be based on NEET scores and not reservations.

Also, as of 2019, the NTA prepares the merit list for NEET as well as conducts the examination. This means that they do not interfere in state affairs. When we talk about the state quota seats and its admissions, the counseling for it is done by the state boards themselves. So a candidate from one state may always take admission under the state quota. But only if they have certification or proof of residence.

2. Full transparency

State-based and independent exams were chock full of scams and leaks. In states that have many medical institutes, it’s common to see deep connections and general corruption enabling the potential of seats being stolen from those who rightfully secured it. NEET is the solution to a better system that establishes fairness and transparency. It is with NEET that a candidate may secure a seat in a medical college solely with their NEET score. If conducted in an online format, then it would help reduce the issues surrounding exams substantially since additional transparency is provided.

3. Reduced pressure on aspirants

The purpose of NEET exams was to reduce the overall burden that most AIPMT Prelims aspirants carried. Multiple exam papers, answering 200 questions in 3 hours, multiple exam patterns and syllabi, along with the aforementioned seat blocking were problematic.

With NEET, there’s now only a single, common entrance exam that provides question papers with minimal patterns and structures. It also provides more time for students, since it reduced the number of questions to 180, making the time limit for the questions as 1 question per minute. With NEET now as the common examination, candidates that pass NEET-UG would be free to apply to public institutes under AIIMS. This was not possible until after the NMC Act 2019 that was passed in September 2019.

4. Equal opportunity

The other benefit of NEET is that it gives everyone an equal chance to win a seat in a medical college. A candidate’s chances of securing a seat in a college they desire is entirely dependent on what rank they secure. Since ranks are calculated based on their scores only, NEET ensures that their skill and knowledge is what gets them through, and not anything else.

Socially speaking, it's also made to be one of the most accessible exams in the country. About 10 regional languages are supported by NEET, so any candidate whose language medium is not English won't have to worry much about it, which is a big contrast to AIPMT.

NEET also plans for state boards to adopt a CBSE-like syllabus, which may help reduce the amount of criticism NEET may receive from those who feel it's unfair.

5. Saves budget and time

Replacing multiple exams that are usually conducted by various institutions with just a common entrance exam is an advantage that plays to both sides; on one hand, it saves a lot of budget for institutions as well as candidates who face financial issues. On the other hand, it helps the candidates themselves save a lot of time and energy for one exam instead of numerous ones.

6. Similar to the AIPMT structure

Not only are both the syllabus and paper structure similar between AIPMT and NEET, but the 15% All-India Quota percentage is also the same for both exams. Since the old structure is retained, it has helped the candidates avoid getting confused about changing entrance exam patterns.

Now that the good stuff is out of the way, it’s time we get into the cons.

Pros and Cons of NEET 2024: Cons of NEET Exam

With a lot of good, comes a little bad. The same holds true for the NEET Exam. Below are the disadvantages of the NEET Exam that a student might face while attempting it -

1. High-risk factor

When we talk about risk, we’re talking about failure. Even though candidates don’t have to prepare for multiple exams, the upside to that is that they had a higher chance of success, since the performance was based on an aggregate of scores. Since NEET exams are single exams, failing it would mean the candidate loses a full year, and cannot perform again until the next exam.

This also means that the candidate must win against thousands of other candidates in order to secure a seat. Not only is it a lot of competition to deal with, but it also adds additional space for error and additional academic and social pressure.

2. CBSE Syllabus

The CBSE syllabus may seem normal for those coming from either a national-level education background, but candidates with state-level education background will find it much more difficult. Although NEET strives to maintain equality for all candidates, equality in this context is a challenge that has yet to be answered.

3. Not cost-friendly

Although the point about the budget has been made above, it doesn’t necessarily apply to students who hail from rural areas, and India consists of many of them. They feel as if NEET caters to middle and upper-class families due to the high monetary cost it demands in order to prepare for it. In order to allow for additional inclusivity, the central government would have to find ways to cut costs down.

In summary, we could say that the academic advantage to NEET is that it’s an economical and faithful way to test a candidate’s skills and knowledge on medicine and dentistry, with the disadvantage being that it’s much harder for state-based candidates to swallow.

They may be rather simple points about a national-level exam, but over the years, we’ve seen remarkable results from it. NEET is here to stay for a long time.

Benefits of Attending NEET Exam 2024

How does the NEET exam benefit the students overall? We usually neglect this aspect of the NEET exam. We will see the benefits of the NEET exam in the below points.

• NEET exams work as a gatekeeper to stop different private and government medical colleges to hold their own individual entrance exams to create a uniform process.
• It helps to give all the aspirants a fair and equal chance to give them what they deserve. If there was no NEET, colleges would have set different criteria for their own entrance exams which may or may not be fair towards all the aspirants.
• Students now have to worry about only one unified medical exam, unlike old times where a single aspirant needed to give 2 or 3 medical entrance exams for different institutes.
• Many a time some private institutions used to block some seats and would ask for large donations and would sell the sats by saying "management quota". NEET brought an end to all these scams.
• A uniform reservation policy is followed overall. Which helps all the candidates to compete on a fairground.