MCC counselling · measured, not scheduled
Nobody has the 2026 dates. Here is what each round does.
MCC has not published a NEET PG 2026 schedule, so every date you have seen is someone’s guess. What can be measured is the thing you actually want to know — whether waiting for a later round helps, and by how much. It does, and the allotment reports say exactly how much.
- 3 rounds + stray vacancy
- 95% of seats go deeper
- median ×1.35 by the end
- 4 years of reports
Where NEET PG 2026 counselling has actually got to
The result was declared on 24 September 2026, with the qualifying bar at 262 out of 720 for General and EWS. Individual scorecards follow on 1 October. All India Quota registration is expected in October.
Does waiting for a later round help?
This is the question the whole counselling period turns on, and it is answerable exactly. Take every seat that has both a round-one closing rank and a final one in 2025, and compare them.
- 95%
- of seats closed deeper
- ×1.35
- median deepening
- ×1.53
- in the All India Quota
- 7,228
- seat buckets measured
So a seat that shut at rank 10,000 in round one was, more often than not, still reachable from about 13,494 by the time stray vacancy finished — and from roughly 15,270 if it was an All India Quota seat. The middle half of all seats moved between ×1.18 and ×1.60.
| Quota | Median deepening | Seat buckets |
|---|---|---|
| All India Quota | ×1.53 | 2,404 |
| Self-Financed Merit Seat | ×1.38 | 670 |
| NRI | ×1.32 | 188 |
| DNB Quota | ×1.28 | 3,501 |
How much work each round does
Round one is the big one, but rounds two and three are nowhere near formalities. These are the allotments MCC published in each round.
| Year | Round | Allotments |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Round 1 | 26,869 |
| 2025 | Round 2 | 20,785 |
| 2025 | Round 3 | 18,669 |
| 2025 | Stray vacancy | 2,782 |
| 2024 | Round 1 | 24,649 |
| 2024 | Round 3 | 13,991 |
| 2024 | Stray vacancy | 2,314 |
| 2023 | Round 2 | 15,184 |
| 2022 | Round 1 | 20,953 |
These are allotments, not distinct seats, and the difference matters. A candidate who upgrades in round two is counted in round one and again in round two, and the seat they vacated is counted a third time when someone else takes it. Adding the rounds together would put 2025 at 69,105 seats, which is roughly four times the truth. Every seat count elsewhere on this site is taken from the busiest single round for that reason.
Why the predictor treats each round separately
Cutoffs loosen year on year, but not at the same speed in every round — which is why a single drift figure would be wrong for all of them. These are fitted from the data, not assumed, and they are the numbers the predictor projects with.
| Round | Year-on-year drift | Buckets fitted on |
|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | +2.0% | 8,909 |
| Round 3 | +14.9% | 5,973 |
| Stray vacancy | +16.9% | 305 |
Round one has barely moved; the later rounds have moved a great deal. Applying round one’s ~2% to a round three seat would understate its cutoff badly, and applying round three’s figure to round one would flatter it. The methodology page shows how these are fitted and how the resulting probabilities score against held-out data.
Frequently asked questions
When does NEET PG 2026 counselling start?
MCC has not published the schedule. The result was declared on 24 September 2026 and individual scorecards follow on 1 October, with All India Quota registration expected in October — but no round dates exist yet, and any site showing them is guessing. This page deliberately shows what each round does instead, which is measurable now and does not change when MCC moves a date.
Is it worth waiting for a later counselling round?
Usually, yes. In 2025, 95% of Open seat buckets closed deeper after round 1, by a median factor of 1.35. A seat that shut at rank 10,000 in round 1 was typically reachable from about 13,494 by the end. In the All India Quota the effect is stronger still, at 1.53× — but "deeper" is not "certain", and the seats that move most are the ones fewest people wanted.
How many rounds does MCC NEET PG counselling have?
Three regular rounds and a stray vacancy round. In 2025 they allotted 26,869 in round 1, 20,785 in round 2, 18,669 in round 3, 2,782 in stray vacancy. Those are allotments rather than distinct seats — a candidate who upgrades is counted again in the round they move in, and the seat they vacate is counted again when it is refilled.
Do cutoffs get looser every year?
Per round, yes, and by very different amounts. Fitted across the years we hold, round 1 moves about 2% a year, round 3 moves about 15% a year, stray vacancy moves about 17% a year. That is why the predictor projects each round on its own drift rather than applying one figure to all of them — a single number would be wrong for every round.
What is the stray vacancy round?
The last round, filling seats still empty after the regular rounds. It is small — 2,782 allotments in 2025 against 26,869 in round 1 — and it is where the deepest ranks in the whole dataset appear. Seats allotted there are usually the branches and colleges nobody chose earlier.