Girls have higher success rate but boys lead 690+ NEET club
While women outperformed men in the 2026 NEET-UG exam success rates, men dominated the top-scoring bracket of 690+ marks. The data reveals a significant gender gap at the highest performance levels despite overall female participation.
Why it matters
It highlights persistent gender disparities in high-stakes competitive examinations in India.
NEW DELHI: Women formed the majority of NEET-UG candidates and qualifiers again in 2026, but their representation thinned sharply at the very top, with only 30 women among the 138 candidates scoring 690 or more.Women accounted for 13.3 lakh of 22.8 lakh registrations, or 58.5%, and 6.5 lakh of 11.2 lakh candidates who qualified in the re-exam. Their success rate among those appearing was 56.8%, compared with 55.1% for men. Yet women made up only 21.7% of the 690-plus list, underlining a persistent pipeline-to-pinnacle gap.Only two women figured in the top 10 — Kudale Shravani Krishna of Maharashtra at All India Rank (AIR) 5 and Riya Ranjan of Bihar at AIR 6. Both are OBC candidates. Of the 44 candidates listed as state, UT or foreign toppers, 13 were women.Punjab’s Aryan Gupta secured AIR 1, followed by Panshul Bansal of Haryana and Uplakshya Goyal of Rajasthan.
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