How we label seats

In short: we take the official allotment lists from past counselling, find the last rank that got each seat, and compare that with yours. The rest of this page explains the details so you can judge how much weight to give each label.

Our source

For NEET-PG, the Medical Counselling Committee publishes a PDF after each All India round listing every candidate placed: their AIR plus the institute, course, quota and category of the seat. We process those lists for 2023, 2024 and 2025, covering all regular rounds plus the stray and special stray rounds, roughly 1.8 lakh placements in total. That includes government All India Quota seats, deemed and central universities, and DNB hospitals. State counselling runs separately and isn't covered yet.

For INI-CET (SCTIMST, NIMHANS, PGIMER, JIPMER and the AIIMSes), the source is the allocation notices from AIIMS's examination section, January 2023 through July 2026, with each session's first, second and open rounds wherever AIIMS has posted them. Seats reserved for an institute's own graduates only appear if you tell us you qualify.

Reading a closing rank

We treat each combination of college, course, quota, seat category and PwD status as one seat type. Its closing rank for a round is simply the largest rank number placed there in that round. Say a branch closed at 3,800 in Round 1: the final person given it that round held rank 3,800, so anyone ranked better than that was in with a real shot.

Figures for the second, third and stray rounds only look at people placed in that particular round. They tell you how deep a seat travelled once earlier holders moved on, not who ended up keeping it.

Our five labels

Each label compares your rank with a seat's toughest year (lowest closing rank) and its easiest year (highest).

• Safe bet

  Still open after your rank came up, every single year on record, and comfortably so: in its toughest year your rank sat inside 80% of where it closed. We need at least two years of history before using this label.

• Good chance

  Still open after your rank came up, every single year on record, but with a smaller cushion than a safe bet. When the cushion is under 500 ranks, the card adds a "Close call" tag; plan for it like a reach.

• Toss-up

  Some years it was still open when your rank came up, some years it had filled. Your rank falls between its toughest and easiest closing ranks.

• Opens later

  Already full by your rank in your comparison round (Round 1 by default), yet a later round went far enough to reach you at least once.

• Long shot

  Full before your rank everywhere, but only just: less than 5% short in its easiest year. Worth a high slot only if you would really take it.

If a seat has no allotment at all in the round you picked (some only ever fill in Round 2 or later), we compare against the deepest round it reached and file it under "Opens later". Cards also say whether a seat is getting easier or harder when its closing rank moved by more than 10% between the first and latest year.

Which seats you'll see

Unreserved (Open) seats are open to everyone, so your list always includes them alongside seats reserved for your own category. Everything is compared on your all-India or overall rank; category ranks aren't used. PwD seats appear only when you say you hold the certificate. Minority, NRI, university-internal (DU, IPU, AMU, BHU) and Armed Forces seats stay hidden until you tick them under special quotas.

Limits worth knowing

• Past rounds don't guarantee this year's. Seat counts, applicant numbers and cut-offs all shift, and a newly added seat has no history at all.
• Fees, service bonds and stipends vary by college and state. Check what the college itself publishes, and this year's bulletin, before you commit.
• From Round 2 onwards, skipping a seat you were given can cost you your security deposit, so only list seats you would actually take.

Dates, rules and seat matrices are always on the official site: mcc.nic.in.