NEW DELHI: The government would like people to believe that NEET has ensured that the top 59,500 students have got into the MBBS course barring the 500-odd with a single digit, zero and negative marks in specific subjects that TOI had exposed. However, an analysis of the ranks of those who have got admission in 2017 reveals that less than half of those who got the first 60,000 ranks in NEET got in and less than a third of the top 1.2 lakh ranks got in.The score of those around the 60,000th rank is 430, i.e within the 94th percentile. Of those with scores of 430 or more, 18,340 joined government colleges, 5,677 got government quota seats in private colleges and 3,468 got into management quota in private colleges. Thus, about 27,500 students of the top 60,000 got admission.These statistics are based on an analysis of nearly 57,000 students admitted to MBBS in 409 colleges last year. Some colleges did not submit their lists to the Medical Council of India and hence information on them was not available. However, while their data would change the exact numbers of admissions between various ranks, it would not alter the overall trend since they account for just about 3,000 seats, mostly in government colleges.When you drop to those within the top 1.2 lakh ranks, ie. to a score of 351 or the 88th percentile, only another 10,600 got admission. In short, from 60,000 students between ranks 60,000 and 1.2 lakh, 49,400 relatively meritorious students did not get admission. Thus it seems farcical that the government would claim that the top 59,500 students have been selected when only about 38,000 from the top 1.2 lakh ranks got admission.The list of those who got admission goes down to below 6.5 lakh rank. Of the roughly 17,500 students who got into the management and NRI quotas in private colleges, more than 10,000 were from ranks below 1.2 lakh. Over 7,000 students with ranks lower than 3 lakh got admission, of which about 6,200 were in private colleges.While some of those with high NEET scores may have opted for other courses, it is clear that a large section would have been forced to drop out because they could not afford the fees in the college they were allotted. Such ‘surrendered’ seats are reverted to the college to fill up after a few mop-up rounds conducted by the government to try and fill them up. The colleges, in turn, can keep going down the list of qualified students until they find those who can afford the exorbitant fees. The fact that this may mean they have terrible scores does not seem to bother anybody.