Sakshi Bairag woke up to her worst nightmare on Tuesday morning. Nine days after she appeared for NEET-UG on May 3 and felt the weight of the world lift off her shoulders, the exam stood cancelled over a suspected paper leak. The decision plunged lakhs of medical aspirants like Sakshi into uncertainty and left them facing a difficult few days or weeks ahead till the re-test is held.
“The NEET preparation is stressful. It is basically three years of hard work compressed into those three hours. That’s what the exam means to us. Now, we are being asked to appear for a re-test for no fault of ours,” the distraught 19-year-old, who studied at Holy Convent in Delhi and took a gap year to prepare for NEET-2026, told TOI.
Competitive exams like JEE and NEET are gruelling on the mind and body, with preparation and concentration — “staying in the zone” as students and coaches describe it — equally important. There’s a cycle of revisions, mock tests, counselling and morale-boosting sessions that make up the final phase of preparations. Once an exam is done, students relax, get out of the zone.
A re-test means they have to now switch back into preparation mode, which isn’t just mentally tough but also logistically difficult for many. Those who stayed at hostels and prepared at coaching centres have dispersed, paused studies or taken breaks. A student TOI spoke to said his confidence in National Testing Agency (NTA) — which faced a storm over the 2024 NEET paper leak — is low and the stress of a re-test is too much. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he said he will switch to studying biotechnology as a graduate course rather than go through this uncertainty.
Another said a new test meant a new paper, an unpredictable outcome and the prospect of dropping a year to prepare afresh for the next NEET if the re-test does not go well. Like Sakshi, many students who took NEET-UG dropped a year to focus on preparations.
Families invest heavily in an exam like NEET, for which preparation begins years ahead. In Tejas Pandey’s case, that began right after he cleared his Class XII boards in 2023. Soon after, Tejas’s family moved him from Bihar to a hostel in NCR for his NEET preparations. “The expenditure came to Rs 4 lakh annually on accommodation, living expenses and coaching fee. Mentorship, revisions and maintaining concentration are extremely important. That entire rhythm has now been broken,” said Tejas, who has moved back to his hometown in East Champaran. Getting back into the groove, he added, is more complicated than revising chapters because students will rush to discuss their approach for the re-test with their coaches and mentors, and no one will want to be left behind.
Suresh Kumar, who owns a grocery shop, was a worried man after the cancellation of NEET 2026 over a suspected paper leak left his son Rana “completely demotivated”. “We are from a Jharkhand village. My son was the first one in our family to dream of becoming a doctor and worked very hard for it. He stayed in Delhi for three years to prepare. We spent whatever we could on coaching and accommodation. He will take the exam again, but I fear he has lost confidence,” Kumar said.
Faculty members at coaching institutes said cancellation of a fiercely competitive exam like NEET, on which lakhs of careers depend, is a cruel blow to all and lands harder on the majority that does not come from a background of privilege.
“The momentum has broken, especially for those who were doing well in the mock tests. With the exam done on May 3, many students have temporarily paused studies. Getting them back into the same competitive frame of mind will be difficult. The paper leak is unacceptable and a systematic failure. There must be more stringent vigilance at the administration level, and stricter invigilation at exam halls and transparency in the process,” said Deepak Jain, a teacher at Triple A Education, a NEET preparation coaching institution in Noida.
Some institutes said they will hold additional classes and mock sessions for students willing to continue preparations. Mentors, however, pointed out that accommodating old students while simultaneously managing new batches will throw up an operational complication.
“Exam delays create big problems for students and parents, who have to pay for extra travel and find places to stay all over again. Students are dealing with stress while worrying if the exam will be handled fairly the next time around. This extra time, however, is a plus for ‘dropper’ students (underperforming ones), as long as they stay focused on practising. Considering the current situation, we are working out a solution,” said Vipin Kumar Sharma, biology faculty at PhysicsWallah.
