Chennai: The state selection committee allotted every MBBS seat under its counselling process by the end of the stray round. This is in sharp contrast to central counselling, which left more than 800 seats in deemed universities unfilled. While annual fees of up to ₹35 lakh kept students away from deemed universities, a late fee cut helped one private university fill more than 100 seats in the state’s final round.The state’s stray round opened with 311 MBBS seats. The allotment list published on Thursday showed that the committee had allotted every seat based on NEET merit and reservation rules. In BDS, 49 seats remained vacant, none in govt colleges. Officials in the committee say most students who opt for seats in the stray round take them as penalties are high.Closing ranks showed that in govt colleges, admissions reached further down the state merit list in the open, BC and BCM categories, even though the corresponding NEET scores rose. Open-category admissions closed at state rank 1,569, against 1,508 in 2025. The corresponding score rose to 571 out of 720 from 533. BC admissions closed at rank 3,682, against 3,381, with scores rising to 532 from 506. BCM admissions reached rank 4,495, against 3,770, while the score rose to 520 from 502. “The ranks went down because more students got into govt medical colleges this year. The state added 150 seats to its seat matrix,” an official said.Four categories, however, closed at better ranks than last year. While MBC admissions ended at 4,212, against 4,484, SC ended at 9,631, against 11,222, SCA closed at 13,034, against 15,895, and ST at 14,790, against 15,906. Their corresponding scores rose to 524 from 494, 467 from 434, 436 from 396, and 419 from 396, respectively.In self-financing colleges, where annual tuition for govt-quota students is up to ₹4.50 lakh, open-category admissions reached rank 4,894, against 4,466 last year. The BC closing rank moved to 7,963 from 7,888. BCM showed a larger shift, reaching 9,375 from 7,299, while MBC remained almost unchanged at 8,689, against 8,688. SC, SCA and ST admissions closed at better ranks than last year.The largest shifts came in private universities. The BC closing rank nearly doubled to 17,888 from 8,986. MBC admissions reached 16,484, against 9,713, while BCM reached 12,300, against 8,483. Open-category admissions closed at 8,122, against 7,185.At Sri Venkateswaraa Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, the prescribed annual tuition for govt-quota students was ₹5.40 lakh, but the institution announced that it would charge ₹20 lakh, said student counsellor Manickavel Arumugam. “Fee is one of the key factors in admissions,” he said. “After three rounds, the college had more than 130 vacant seats. It then reduced the annual tuition to ₹7.40 lakh for govt-quota seats and ₹16.40 lakh for management-quota seats. All seats were allotted,” he said.
