How to Deal with the Competition for NEET

Hello future doctors. Firstly, I’d like to say that I am proud of you. Nowadays, the biggest fear in the mind of a NEET aspirant is the competition. 25 lakh students! This is what scares students when they are thinking of preparing for NEET, when they are applying for NEET, and when the exam is overhead. Basically, this is the biggest fear throughout the preparation journey. “How am I special?” “How can I be better than 25 lakh people?” These are the common questions that arise in the minds of any aspirant. 

The sheer volume is mind blowing. When I gave NEET in 2021, there were 16 lakh applicants. Gradually the number kept increasing, 20 lakhs, 22 lakhs, and now 25 lakhs! To be honest, the trend is very clear, the number of aspirants will keep increasing. Who knows, maybe it will hit 50 lakhs or even a crore in some years? It is very natural to feel scared of such a huge competition. None of us have experience in dealing with so much pressure, you can allow yourself to be scared. 

Who should be scared the most? 

Have you ever watched a TV series on one tab of your laptop and then switched it to the NEET lecture series when your parents checked up on you? Do you sleep at 3 AM and wake up at 1-2Pm? Do you keep scrolling reels on your mobile every 10 minutes? Do you spend more than 3-4 hours on social media everyday? 

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you should be very scared of the competition. The moment that you are wasting trying to fool your parents or your teachers, another student is studying with all their focus. The mock tests that you cheat in to score 600, can be solved by another student within just 2 hours with a much better score than you. 

If you do not take the competition seriously, you will have to face the consequences. 

So, decide today, if you want to be a part of the crowd, or if you actually want a seat. 

Who shouldn’t be scared? 

Anybody who is giving their best, studying day and night and solving tests should not be scared. If you are not studying for the sake of studying then you are already way ahead in the competition. 

Let me give you my example. I studied for NEET from a local coaching center, most of the students there were preparing only because their parents had forced them to apply for NEET. They had no motivation to clear NEET, neither did they work for it. The class teachers  tried to convince them to study and their parents also shouted at them. So, to make sure that they can live peacefully, they used to cheat on tests and pretend that their preparation is going well. 

Obviously, none of them could clear NEET. This made me realize that almost 90-95% of the students apply just for the sake of it. The competition is only for the top 1,00,000 students, no matter the number of applicants. Even when I appeared for NEET in 2021, 16 lakh students had appeared with me. This seemed like a very big number then. But, as I said, even then, the competition was among the top 1 lakh students, even today, the competition is among the top 1 lakh students. Only 1 lakh of us are actually working towards it, the rest are just wasting their time.

The truth about the competition

Did you know that the qualifying score is around 120-137 marks for NEET. (Let me make it clear that qualifying does not mean that you will get a seat, it only means that you can appear for counseling) Do you know how many students actually score this much? Only 7 lakh kids. Out of 22 lakh students that appeared in 2023, ONLY 7 lakh even qualified for counseling.

This means that the rest of the crowd was there just for the sake of it. Just because their parents forced them, or just because they had nothing else to do. This is going to be the case in 2024 too. Even if 25 lakh students have applied, barely 7-9 lakh will qualify. The competition has also increased because of the new eligibility guidelines by NTA, the age limit has been removed, there is no limit to the number of attempts one aspirant can give, now even biotechnology students can apply for NEET. Think this way, maybe people are just giving it a try now that they are eligible, maybe not everybody is all that serious? Yes, some people might be serious, but that is a very small number.

What really matters? 

The competition will keep increasing, this is the truth. You cannot do anything about it. Yes it will get scary some days, and you might feel overwhelmed. At such times, just look around, go to the internet and see what most NEET aspirants are doing, most of them are just wasting their time online. Try to understand the real competition. If you are surrounded by very smart students who keep bragging about their preparation, learn to cut people out. Try to maintain your boundaries and keep limited conversations with most people. 

You cannot control the number of applicants but you can control your immediate sphere of people and you can control the amount of work you put in. Think of the competition as motivation to prove yourself. Think about what it must feel like to get AIR 1 in a crowd of 25 lakh people. Let this feeling be your anchor to the preparation journey. Let this feeling make you work more. 

If you think about it, the NEET paper is not very difficult. Your rank, your college, your percentile is all dependent on your accuracy. If you make your preparation so strong that you are able to get a good score in every exam then what other people are scoring does not really matter. Aim for your personal best, aim for a very good exam attempting strategy and look how the fear of the competition will fade away. Your previous scores are your only competition. Aim for a score instead of a rank. Rank will be in comparison to other students but your score will be your score.

You can do it.

Overthinking will not help at all when you cannot control your situation. You cannot control where you are, you can only control your response. Such thoughts about the competition are only a distraction. You must focus on your work and keep working until you are one of the people who cleared NEET. 1 lakh students are going to get a seat, everybody is facing the same competition. Make sure that you are among that 1 lakh. 

And honestly, if I tell you how I got through it, I’d say I did not think about it a lot. It seemed impossible until I did it. Do it, get to my college and then I will tell you the rest face to face. 

All the best, you can do it. 

Remember that the only way out is through it.