NEET UG 2025 Counselling: Stray Vacancies: Full Detail Explained Simply–
What is the Stray Vacancy Round in NEET UG?
If a student does not get the seat regular or mop up round there is another chance for them in stray round. The stray vacancy round is like a last-minute chance for students to secure a seat in medical and dental colleges if they missed out in earlier rounds of counselling.
The stray round of counselling occurs after regular rounds are finished and seats are empty. It is like a final chance to fill out any remaining empty seats in college. It’s held after the regular rounds of counselling (Round 1, Round 2, and Mop-up Round) to fill left seats. Let’s simply break it down step-by-step:
Stray Round
1. All India Quota Seats: This counselling is managed by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC). MCC handles the stray rounds for seats under the All India Quota for students.
2. State Quota Seats: These seats are managed by the respective State Counselling Authorities. Every state has its own counselling process for conducting the stray vacancy round.
3. Deemed and Central Universities: The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) also manages the stray vacancy rounds for these deemed and central universities.
What is the Eligibility Criteria?
Who Can Participate: Those candidates who haven’t been allotted any kind of seat in the previous rounds like, (Round 1, Round 2, and Mop-up Round) are fully eligible for the stray vacancy round.
Who Cannot Participate: Those candidates who have already been allotted a seat in any of the previous rounds cannot participate in the stray vacancy round counselling.
What is the Process of Stray Vacancy Round?
1. List of Eligible Candidates: The Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) will release a list of candidates who are eligible to participate in the stray vacancy round.
2. No New Registrations: No new registrations are allowed for stray rounds conducted by the MCC. Only those candidates who were registered earlier but didn’t get a seat can participate in the stray rounds. However, some states might allow new registrations for their stray rounds to fill the vacant seats.
3. Seat Allotment: The seat allotment is solely based on the merit (rank) of the students and their preference for colleges. These seats are only filled by the most deserving candidates.
4. Manual/Offline Counselling: In some cases, colleges might conduct a manual or offline counselling session to fill the vacant seats in their college. It means candidates may have to be physically present at the college for the time of counselling process.
NEET UG 2025 Counselling: Stray Vacancies
Is Stray Round Avail in Private Colleges?
Separate Counselling: If any private medical colleges still have any vacant seats after the state counselling process, then they can conduct their own stray vacancy rounds to fill those vacant seats.
Important Points:
1. No up-gradation or Withdrawal: If any candidate is applying for stray rounds of counselling so you must know that once a student is allotted a seat in the stray vacancy counselling process, they cannot upgrade to a better seat or resign from the allotted seat. This means they have to accept the seat and join the respective college.
2. Consequences of Not Joining the seat: If you had applied stray round but fails to join the allotted college after getting a seat in the stray vacancy round. So, candidate might lose their security deposit. So those students who are applying for this round to ensure that don’t take the stray round casually and only participate in that counselling if they are genuinely interested in joining the college.
