The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2021 exam is scheduled to be held on September 11, 2021, as an offline test across 201 exam centres. Once again, there is a significantly higher number of female applicants this year compared to males. NTA has decided to conduct the exam in 13 languages this time for admission to undergraduate medical degree programs such as MBBS, BDS and AYUSH courses.
After an extension of the application period till August 10, 2021, and an extension of the last date to pay the application fee till August 15, 2021, the registrations for NEET 2021 are now over. Carrying forward last year’s trends, the number of female candidates who applied for NEET 2021 is yet again higher than the number of male candidates by a considerable extent. As per reports, 903508 girls have applied for the exam this year in contrast to only 711196 lakh male candidates.
Check out NEET 2021 applicant statistics below
| Total Applicants | 16 Lakhs |
| Male | 7.1 Lakhs |
| Female | 9 Lakhs |
This year, NEET 2021 registrations have reached the highest figures ever at 16 lakh registrations since the exam was introduced in India. Besides, TOI reports indicate that the number of applicants has consistently risen during the past five years while the number of female candidates applying for the exam has also increased by 40.8% during the last five years.
Compared to this year, last year 1597435 candidates registered for the exam out of which, 716586 were boys while 880843 were girls. Similar to the previous year statistics, around 09 lakh applicants are girls and 7.1 lakh applicants are boys this year. TOI has also reported that even state-wise, the number of female applicants is more than the number of male applicants this year (except for Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, West Bengal and Rajasthan).
Interpretation of three years of data of NEET registrations leads to the following main insights.
- This year, the number of NEET 2021 registrations have set a new record by being the highest ever.
- The total number of registrations for the NEET exam has increased consistently during 2019 to 2021.
- From 2019 to 2021, the number of girl candidates registering for the NEET exam has increased consistently.
- During the last five years, the number of female NEET applicants have increased by 40.8%.
- During 2019 to 2021, the number of female candidates registering for NEET exam has always been higher than the number of male applicants.
During the last three years from 2019 to 2021, the number of male applicants for the NEET exam has always been lower than female applicants (see chart below). Whereas, the number of female applicants has increased every year.
