From Tamil Nadu to Telangana, age takes a back seat in India’s toughest medical entrance exam
When the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2025 results went live last month, the usual flood of teenage success stories had a surprising twist: a growing cohort of parents had made the cut too.
Tamil Nadu: Mother, 49, wins MBBS seat while daughter waits in line
Physiotherapist Amuthavalli Manivannan, 49, cleared the exam on her first attempt, securing a government-funded MBBS seat in Virudhunagar under the Persons with Benchmark Disabilities quota. Her 18-year-old daughter Samyuktha, who scored 460, is expected to claim a general-category seat when counselling resumes next week.
“I missed my chance three decades ago. Reading the same textbooks as my daughter reignited the dream,” Amuthavalli said outside the Chennai counselling hall, adding with a laugh that the pair have agreed not to pick the same college.
Telangana: RMP mother and teen daughter take the paper on the same morning
In Suryapet district, registered medical practitioner (RMP) Bhukya Sarita, 38, persuaded exam officials to allot her a centre near the one assigned to her daughter, Kaveri. Both emerged from their halls beaming. “She used to quiz me after dinner; soon I was the one asking her to solve past papers,” Sarita recalled.
The father-daughter trend gathers pace
Last year, Delhi corporate employee Vikas Mangotra, 50, and daughter Meemansa both cracked NEET-UG 2024, a feat he undertook “to decode the paper” for her benefit. Similar stories have surfaced in Khammam, Hyderabad and Bhopal, suggesting the phenomenon is no longer anecdotal.
Why older candidates are returning to NEET
- 2017’s Supreme Court verdict removed the upper-age limit of 25, opening the door for second-chance aspirants.
- Flexible online coaching has expanded access; ed-tech provider Educart reports a 12% rise in NEET enrollees over 30 years old in 2024.
- The National Medical Commission’s decision to reserve 5% of seats for candidates with benchmark disabilities has provided a pathway for professionals like Amuthavalli, who lives with partial hearing loss.
Numbers behind the narrative
- 23.8% surge in candidates aged 30-plus taking NEET between 2022 and 2025, according to provisional data from the National Testing Agency.
- 1,420 candidates over 40 wrote NEET 2025; 178 qualified, up from 96 the previous year.
- Women aged 35-50 formed the fastest-growing sub-group, climbing 31% year-on-year, NTA officials confirmed.
Experts weigh in
Dr. Anuradha Agrawal, professor of medical education at AIIMS Bhopal, calls the shift “a quiet revolution”:
“Medicine was once a one-shot goal after school. Lifelong learning—and the removal of age caps has changed that calculus. Mature entrants often bring prior healthcare experience that can enrich classrooms.”
Disability-rights advocate Dr. Satendra Singh welcomes the trend but warns of patchy certification practices that still block some aspirants:
“Uniform, transparent disability assessment is essential if we want equity, not just inspirational headlines.”
Classroom dynamics: challenge or asset?
College administrators contacted by this newspaper said mixed-age cohorts demand sensitive timetabling but also boost peer learning. “Older students mentor younger classmates in clinical etiquette, while the teens keep the parents up to speed with tech,” noted Dr. A. Shanmugam, dean of a Tamil Nadu government medical college.
What’s next?
With NEET 2026 registration set to open in November, coaching centres are already advertising “family batches.” For Samyuktha, the novelty has not worn off:
“My friends tease that I’ll have in-house competition in anatomy practicals. Honestly, it just means twice the motivation.”
As age barriers crumble, India’s medical colleges may soon find grey hair as common as stethoscopes in first-year lecture halls, a reminder that the journey to medicine, like medicine itself, increasingly has no expiration date.
