How to read an INI-CET closing rank

Last updated 20 Oct 2026 · Reviewed by Dr. Rajiv Marechal
Written from AIIMS New Delhi’s official INI-CET seat allocation results, January 2021 to July 2026, and the July 2026 seat position notice. Every example below is from those documents (listed under Sources).

Ask three people what an AIIMS seat “closes at” and you can get three numbers, all true. One quotes Round 1, one the Open Round, one a different session. With INI-CET there is a fourth reason: many branches have only one or two seats in a category, so the number is often one person’s rank. A closing rank only means something with its conditions attached.

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1. What the number actually is

A closing rank is the INI-CET overall rank of the last candidate allotted that seat: one institute, one branch, one seat type, in one round of one session. AIIMS prints every allotment, rank by rank, in each round’s result notification. Nobody sets the number in advance. It is a record of what happened.

That makes it a floor, not a promise. If a seat went at rank 2,000 and yours is 1,500, it went to someone ranked below you, which is worth knowing. It does not mean you will get it this time.

It is also its own scale. An INI-CET rank and a NEET-PG rank are different numbers and cannot be compared. And it is the overall rank, the one the merit list uses, for every category.

2. Seats are few, so one person moves the number

INI-CET branches are small. In the July 2026 seat position, AIIMS New Delhi’s Orthopaedics had four seats: one UR, one OBC, one SC and one ST. Each of those closing ranks is the rank of a single person and the choice they made that day. One strong candidate who picks a different branch next session, and the number moves a long way.

3. The seats in each category change every session

AIIMS publishes a fresh seat position for every session, and the split by category changes. In July 2026, AIIMS Bhopal’s General Surgery had three seats: one OBC, one SC, one ST, and no UR seat at all. That session simply has no UR closing rank for it.

The results show the same thing over time. AIIMS Nagpur’s Orthopaedics had no open (UR) allotment in July 2024, January 2025, July 2025 or January 2026, and then had UR allotments again in July 2026. So when a session has no figure for a seat type, it is because no such seat was allotted that session, not because a number was lost. The one known gap is the July 2022 Open Round.

4. The round changes everything

In its Round 1 and Round 2 results, AIIMS prints the rank of the last candidate allotted in each category. For MD, MS, DM and MCh in July 2026, the last open (UR) seat in Round 1 went to rank 4,799. In Round 2 it went to rank 6,798.

The Open Round moves much further. Two seats from July 2026, UR in each case:

Seat	Round 1	Round 2	Open Round
AIIMS Nagpur, Orthopaedics	321	254	1,110
AIIMS Guwahati, Physiology	4,024	6,201	35,045

Why is Nagpur’s Round 2 figure lower than Round 1? The Round 2 list prints only the candidates who took part in Round 2, not everyone holding a seat. Rank 254 is the same candidate who got this seat in Round 1 and stayed on it. Rank 321, who also got it in Round 1, is not on the Round 2 list at all. So a lower Round 2 figure does not mean the seat got harder.

The late number is real. Someone genuinely got that seat at that rank. But it happened because a seat fell vacant at the very end, after everyone ranked above had settled, and the Open Round lets any qualified candidate in, including people who skipped the earlier rounds. Planning on it is planning on that happening again.

How FindMyBranch shows it: a session’s figure is the worst rank that got the seat in any of its rounds, and the card always names the round it came from. A card that says “Open Round” means the earlier rounds closed at better ranks. The full results show every round. July 2022 has Rounds 1 and 2 only, because its Open Round result is not in our data.

5. Sessions differ too

January and July are separate sessions, with separate seat lists and separate candidates. The last UR seat in Round 1 went to rank 5,808 in July 2025, 7,621 in January 2026 and 4,799 in July 2026. Compare like with like: the same round, the same seat type, and more than one session.

6. Seat types you may not be able to take

A closing rank belongs to a seat type. Many of them are open only to some candidates. Read the type before you read the number.

UR (open) seats. Anyone can take one on merit. A reserved candidate whose best choice is free as a UR seat gets the UR seat, not the reserved one, so UR closing ranks include reserved candidates too.
OBC, SC, ST and EWS seats. Only for that category.
PwBD seats. Only for PwBD candidates, inside their own category. They often go at much later ranks, so never read a PwBD figure as the open figure.
AIIMS preference (IP) seats. Only for graduates of that same AIIMS, and they come out of the UR seats. In July 2025, AIIMS Nagpur’s Orthopaedics had no UR allotment at all: two seats went as preference seats to AIIMS Nagpur graduates, at ranks 902 and 3,681. In Round 2 of July 2026 a preference seat there went at rank 6,078. Unless you studied MBBS at AIIMS Nagpur, those numbers are not yours to use.
JIPMER “Institute” seats for JIPMER MBBS graduates, NIMHANS’s Karnataka and North-East domicile seats, and PGIMER’s Rural Area seats. Each has its own eligibility rule.
Converted seats (OCS). Reserved seats left empty can be converted in the Open Round, and the result prints them as “OCS”. Who may take them is set by that round’s brochure.
Sponsored and foreign national seats are a separate pool with their own merit list.

The INI-CET tool only uses seat types you tell it you can take, and leaves converted, sponsored and foreign national seats out.

7. JIPMER works differently

At JIPMER, seats are not split by branch and category. Its prospectus says there is no branch-wise reservation: seats are allotted through a dynamic roster, and a candidate who reaches a roster point may take any JIPMER seat still vacant. The July 2026 seat position lists JIPMER’s seats by branch with no category split at all. So a JIPMER closing rank for, say, OBC shows where an OBC roster point holder happened to pick that branch in that session. It is not a seat that was kept for OBC in that branch.

8. How to actually use the numbers

Comfortable. Your rank is clearly better than the closing rank, in more than one session and in Round 1 or 2. These keep your list safe.
Borderline. Your rank sits near the number. Worth listing high, but do not count on them.
Hard. Your rank is behind, or the only evidence is an Open Round allotment. List them at the top if you want them, and plan without them.

One INI-CET rule makes the bottom of the list matter more than in most counsellings: there is no option to refuse a Round 1 seat, and not joining one costs ₹3 lakh. So every seat you list should be one you would join. See INI-CET choice filling.

Do this with your own rank. The INI-CET tool sorts every seat you can take into very likely, possible and hard, and shows the session, round and seat type behind each number.

Check INI-CET options

Just browsing? The INI-CET closing ranks by branch are free to read.

Sources

The other sessions’ figures, January 2021 to July 2026, are from AIIMS New Delhi’s seat allocation results for those sessions, as used in the INI-CET tool.