The first round of NEET PG 2025 counselling has once again revealed an uncomfortable pattern in India’s medical education landscape: even the most highly ranked medical colleges in the National Institutional Ranking Framework ( NIRF ) fail to attract the country’s top-performing postgraduate aspirants. Instead, the highest-ranked students overwhelmingly prefer central government institutions like PGIMER, other AIIMS-affiliated hospitals, JIPMER, and long-established state-run colleges such as Madras Medical College (MMC), Vardhman Mahavir Medical College (VMMC), and KEM Mumbai.

Since 2016, the Centre has been releasing a list of top colleges under various categories, including medical. In these nine years, AIIMS Delhi has been the undisputed number 1 .

The trend, visible yea

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