If you searched "AIIMS PG," the exam you are picturing does not exist anymore in its old form. AIIMS's own separate postgraduate entrance exam (AIIMS PGMEE) was folded into a single combined test years ago along with the equivalent exams once run separately by JIPMER, PGIMER Chandigarh, NIMHANS, and SCTIMST. That combined test is INI-CET, and it is now the only route into MD, MS, MDS, DM, and MCh seats at every one of these institutes. The July 2026 session exam was held May 16, 2026; roughly 90,000 candidates registered, about 75,000 appeared, and 51,563 qualified for 1,581 seats. Unlike JEE Main or NEET UG, AIIMS itself runs both the exam and the counselling end to end through aiimsexams.ac.in.
| Date | Update | Source |
|---|---|---|
| May 23, 2026 | INI-CET July 2026 session result declared, 51,563 candidates qualified | AIIMS New Delhi |
| May 16, 2026 | INI-CET July 2026 session exam conducted (single-day CBT) | AIIMS New Delhi |
| April 25, 2026 | July 2026 session application window closed | AIIMS New Delhi |
| March 28, 2026 | July 2026 session registration opened | AIIMS New Delhi |
| November 15, 2025 | INI-CET January 2026 session result declared | AIIMS New Delhi |
| Full name (current exam) | Institute of National Importance Combined Entrance Test |
| Acronym | INI-CET (legacy search term: AIIMS PG, formerly AIIMS PGMEE) |
| Status of the old standalone exam | Discontinued. AIIMS PGMEE was absorbed into INI-CET; there is no separate AIIMS-only PG entrance anymore |
| Conducting body | AIIMS, New Delhi (exam and counselling both) |
| Mode | Online, computer-based test (CBT) |
| Level | National (admission scope limited to the INI group of institutes) |
| Frequency | Biannual, January session and July session |
| Language | English only |
| Total marks | 200 |
| Duration | 180 minutes (3 hours), 4 sections of 45 minutes each |
| Question count | 200, all objective, 50 per section |
| Negative marking | -1/3 for each incorrect answer; 0 for unattempted |
| Marks per correct answer | +1 |
| Application fee | ₹4,000 (General/OBC-NCL/EWS), ₹3,200 (SC/ST/PwD) |
| Official website | aiimsexams.ac.in |
| July 2026 cycle registrations | ~90,000 |
| July 2026 cycle appeared | ~75,000 |
| July 2026 cycle qualified | 51,563 |
| July 2026 total seats | 1,581 across all participating institutes |
| Exam date | November 9, 2025 |
| Result declared | November 15, 2025 |
| Mock round seat list | December 11, 2025 |
| Round 1 counselling registration | December 12-13, 2025 |
| Round 1 seat allotment | December 18, 2025 |
| Round 2 seat allotment | January 9, 2026 |
| Open Round choice filling | January 23 to February 7, 2026 |
| Open Round reporting | February 23-28, 2026 |
| Registration opened | March 28, 2026 |
| Registration closed | April 25, 2026 |
| Exam date | May 16, 2026 |
| Result declared | May 23, 2026 |
| Mock round and Round 1 counselling | June 2026 |
| Round 2 counselling | Late June to early July 2026 |
| Open Round / mop-up | Mid to late July 2026 (in progress, confirm exact dates at aiimsexams.ac.in) |
| January 2027 session notification and registration | Around September 2026 tentative |
| January 2027 session exam date | Around November 2026 tentative |
| January 2027 session result | Around mid-November 2026 tentative |
INI-CET eligibility requires a valid MBBS or BDS degree from a recognised institution plus completion of the compulsory 12-month rotatory internship. Candidates must have secured a minimum aggregate of 55% across all MBBS or BDS professional examinations for General, OBC-NCL, EWS, and General-PwD categories, or 50% for SC, ST, and SC/ST-PwD categories. There is no upper age limit set by INI-CET itself and no cap on attempts, though individual participating institutes can set their own additional conditions for specific seats.
| Educational qualification | A recognised MBBS degree (for MD/MS/DM/MCh seats) or BDS degree (for MDS seats). |
| Internship completion | Compulsory 12-month rotatory internship completed, or an expected-completion undertaking filed per that session's bulletin deadline. |
| Minimum aggregate (General/OBC-NCL/EWS/General-PwD) | 55% across all MBBS/BDS professional examinations. |
| Minimum aggregate (SC/ST/SC-PwD/ST-PwD) | 50% across all MBBS/BDS professional examinations. |
| Number of attempts | No cap. A candidate may sit INI-CET in every session for which they otherwise qualify. |
| Age limit | No upper age limit set by INI-CET itself. Some institutes (notably NIMHANS and SCTIMST) have announced their own upper age limits for specific seats; verify directly with the institute. |
| NEET PG relationship | A NEET PG score has no standing in INI-CET counselling. Candidates must separately qualify INI-CET; there is no substitution route. |
| Nationality | Indian citizens are the primary eligible pool. NRI/OCI/foreign-national rules vary by institute; check the specific session's bulletin. |
The INI-CET application is fully online through the AIIMS portal at aiimsexams.ac.in. The July 2026 session's window ran from March 28 to April 25, 2026. The application fee is ₹4,000 for General, OBC-NCL, and EWS candidates, and ₹3,200 for SC, ST, and PwD candidates, payable online only.
| Document | Format | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | JPG / JPEG | Per bulletin spec | Recent, plain background, matches the photo used at counselling reporting |
| Signature | JPG / JPEG | Per bulletin spec | Handwritten, scanned; not typed or stylised |
| MBBS/BDS degree or provisional certificate | Per bulletin spec | Required to confirm the qualifying degree | |
| Internship completion certificate or undertaking | Per bulletin spec | Candidates still mid-internship must submit the undertaking format specified in that session's bulletin | |
| Category certificate (if applicable) | Per bulletin spec | OBC-NCL / SC / ST / EWS / PwD, central-government format |
| Category | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| General / OBC-NCL / EWS | ₹4,000 | ₹4,000 |
| SC / ST / PwD | ₹3,200 | ₹3,200 |
INI-CET has 200 objective questions split into four sections of 50 questions each, with 45 minutes allotted per section inside an overall three-hour window. Every question carries 1 mark for a correct answer, with -1/3 deducted for an incorrect answer and no penalty for a question left unattempted. AIIMS runs multiple shifts across the exam day and applies a percentile-based normalisation across shifts.
| Mode | Online, computer-based test |
| Duration | 180 minutes (3 hours), 4 sections of 45 minutes each |
| Sections | 4 sections of 50 questions each, covering the full MBBS/BDS curriculum |
| Total questions | 200, all objective |
| Total marks | 200 |
| Marks per correct answer | +1 |
| Negative marking | -1/3 per incorrect answer |
| Unattempted | 0, no penalty |
| Question style | Increasingly clinical-vignette-based rather than direct recall |
| Section choice | None; attempt every question within its section's time block |
| Language | English only |
The single biggest pattern shift since AIIMS PGMEE was absorbed into INI-CET is the move toward clinical-vignette questions: multi-line case scenarios with vitals, history, and lab values rather than isolated-fact recall. Independent paper-analysis coverage puts clinical-vignette questions at roughly 50 to 55% of the paper in the 2023 cycles, rising to roughly 55 to 65% by 2024 and 2025. These figures come from aggregator paper-analysis write-ups rather than an AIIMS-published breakdown, so treat the exact percentage as directional rather than an official statistic.
Under +1/-1/3 marking, the break-even point for guessing sits lower than under a -1 penalty: a question where a candidate can eliminate even one of the usual four options already clears positive expected value. Pure blind guessing across four options still nets a small positive expected value under this specific ratio, a real, quantifiable difference from JEE Main's or NEET UG's -1 scheme and worth knowing before exam day.
INI-CET does not publish a separate, narrowed syllabus document the way JEE Main or NEET UG does. The syllabus is, in effect, the entire MBBS (or BDS) curriculum as prescribed by the National Medical Commission, tested through case-based questions. The four sections are not labelled by subject on the paper itself, but questions draw from three broad groupings: pre-clinical, para-clinical, and clinical subjects, with clinical subjects carrying the largest and fastest-growing share. AIIMS does not publish an official subject-wise weightage breakdown; the figures below are from aggregated paper-analysis coverage of the 2023-2025 cycles.
Roughly 15-22% of the paper. Anatomy carries the largest single pre-clinical share, followed by Physiology and Biochemistry, all tested through applied, clinically-anchored questions rather than pure descriptive recall.
| Unit | Weightage | Key topics |
|---|---|---|
| Anatomy | Largest of the three | Applied anatomy relevant to surgical and radiological reasoning |
| Physiology | Second-largest | Systems physiology tied to clinical presentation |
| Biochemistry | Smallest of the three | Metabolic pathways as they relate to disease states |
Roughly 25-30% of the paper. Pathology and Pharmacology carry the largest share, both tested through disease-mechanism and drug-reasoning questions embedded in short clinical scenarios.
| Unit | Weightage | Key topics |
|---|---|---|
| Pathology | Largest para-clinical share | Disease mechanism tied directly into clinical vignettes |
| Pharmacology | Close second | Drug mechanism, interaction, and adverse-effect reasoning in context |
| Microbiology | Smaller share | Organism-disease matching within case scenarios |
| Forensic Medicine and Community Medicine | Smaller share | Increasingly asked as short applied scenarios |
Roughly 45-55% of the paper, the largest and still-growing group. Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology together carry close to half the total paper.
| Unit | Weightage | Key topics |
|---|---|---|
| General Medicine | Highest individual weight, with Surgery | Multi-system case vignettes, often the longest questions on the paper |
| Surgery | Comparable to Medicine | Pre- and post-operative reasoning, surgical anatomy applied to case scenarios |
| Obstetrics and Gynaecology | Third-highest clinical share | Antenatal care through operative obstetrics |
| Paediatrics | Meaningful share | Growth, development, and paediatric emergency scenarios |
| Radiology, Anaesthesia, Orthopaedics, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology, ENT, Dermatology | Smaller individual shares, substantial as a block | Distributed across the paper by that session's question-setters |
A defensible INI-CET preparation plan accounts for a reality JEE Main and NEET UG candidates do not face: most aspirants study for it while working full clinical hours as interns or junior residents. The plans below assume that constraint rather than pretending candidates have eight free hours a day.
12-month plan
Months 1-4: Build a subject base. Start with Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and Pathology first, since these carry the largest combined weight. Pair every reading session with MCQ practice from day one rather than delaying questions until "concepts are done," the single most common mistake reported by repeat test-takers.
Months 5-8: Rotate the remaining subjects. Cover Paediatrics, Pharmacology, Microbiology, Radiology, Psychiatry, and Orthopaedics while running weekly subject-wise tests. Log every wrong answer with a one-line note on why it was missed; this log becomes the highest-value revision resource in the final months.
Months 9-12: Mock-heavy phase. Full-length, timed mock papers at least twice a week, rising to near-daily in the final six weeks. Revisit high-yield vignettes across Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics repeatedly, since these three alone account for close to half the paper.
6-month plan
Months 1-3: Prioritise ruthlessly. Cover Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology first and in depth, since a strong showing here can offset weaker showings elsewhere. Pair every reading session with an equal block of MCQ practice on the same topic.
Months 4-5: Complete the rest while running weekly mocks. Time mocks strictly to the real 45-minutes-per-section structure rather than a loose three-hour block, since section-level time pressure is a real feature of the exam.
Month 6: Mock-heavy. Two to three full mocks weekly, plus a focused re-read of the personal error log. Protecting even four uninterrupted hours a day in this final month matters more than any single resource choice.
90-day plan
Days 1-30: Triage hard. Identify the two or three subjects where mock performance is already reasonably strong and the weakest two or three, and decide deliberately which weak subjects are worth rescuing. Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology should not be treated as an acceptable loss given their combined weight.
Days 31-60: Section-timed daily practice. Alternate full mocks with 45-minute single-section drills targeting the weakest section from the prior mock, rather than a full three-hour mock every day given real burnout risk on top of clinical duty.
Days 61-90: Full mocks every alternate day. Error-log review on the off days, and a deliberate wind-down in the final five days with no new content, matching sleep and meal timing to the actual exam slot where possible.
Coaching genuinely helps candidates who need structured accountability while juggling clinical duty, since self-paced study is harder to sustain around unpredictable ward hours than around a fixed school timetable. Full-length programmes from providers such as PrepLadder, Marrow, or DAMS typically run roughly ₹35,000 to ₹90,000 per year depending on format, with DAMS\'s classroom-based offerings, where still run in person, sitting meaningfully higher than the video-first platforms. These are approximate market ranges gathered during research, not a fixed official price list.
Self-study built on standard MBBS textbooks plus a serious question bank and freely available previous-session papers is a realistic path for a disciplined candidate, particularly one repeating the exam after already building a strong base during undergraduate study. The honest calculus is closer to "which structure keeps you consistent given your actual duty roster" than "which option is objectively superior," since protected study time, not access to content, is most candidates' real bottleneck.
Topper insight (pending)
Verified INI-CET topper from a recent 2025 or 2026 session, rank inside the top 50 for their category, with scorecard verification, willing to be quoted by name. Without this, the page reads like every other generic prep article.
| Book | Subject | Price (₹) | One-line take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine (or a condensed MCQ-oriented Medicine text) | Medicine | 4,000 | Deep enough for the vignette style Medicine questions now favour; overkill to read cover to cover under time pressure. |
| Bailey and Love's Short Practice of Surgery | Surgery | 3,200 | Standard Surgery reference; pair with an MCQ bank rather than relying on it alone for exam-format practice. |
PrepLadder and Marrow subscriptions typically run roughly ₹35,000 to ₹70,000 per year depending on plan and promotion, and are broadly comparable in scope; the choice often comes down to which video style suits the candidate. DAMS's test series and classroom programme, where offered in person, cost meaningfully more but add live doubt-clearing and a fixed schedule. A dedicated INI-CET-pattern test series (four sections, 45 minutes each, +1/-1/3 marking) is worth the cost because so few free resources replicate the section-timed structure accurately.
The activity with the highest score-to-effort ratio in exam prep is mock-test analysis. Solving a mock takes hours; analysing it correctly takes longer. Most candidates skip the analysis. The candidates who score well do not.
| Year | Difficulty | Hardest section | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Moderate-Hard | Clinical (Medicine/Surgery) | July 2026 session, clinical-vignette share roughly 55-65% |
| 2025 | Moderate | Clinical (Medicine/Surgery) | Established the current vignette-heavy baseline across both 2025 sessions |
| 2024 | Moderate | Clinical (Obstetrics and Gynaecology) | Transitional period, roughly 50-55% clinical-vignette share |
Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology together account for the largest and most consistent share of questions across recent sessions. Within Medicine, cardiology, nephrology, and infectious disease vignettes recur most often; within Surgery, pre- and post-operative complication scenarios recur most often; within Obstetrics and Gynaecology, high-risk pregnancy and operative delivery scenarios are the most frequently tested pattern.
| Year | General | OBC-NCL | EWS | SC | ST | PwD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 session | 50th percentile | 45th percentile | — | 45th percentile | 45th percentile | — |
| January 2026 session | 50th percentile | 45th percentile (approx.) | — | 45th percentile (approx.) | 45th percentile (approx.) | — |
| College | General (HS) | General (OS) | OBC (OS) | SC (OS) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIIMS Delhi, MD General Medicine (July 2026, Round 1, General) | — | 3 | — | — |
| AIIMS Delhi, MD Radiodiagnosis (July 2026, General) | — | 5-13 | — | — |
| AIIMS Delhi, MD Anatomy (July 2026, General) | — | 4,067 | — | — |
| AIIMS Delhi, all courses, General, final round range | — | 4-14,170 | — | — |
A projection for the January 2027 session would need to be anchored on the last several sessions' percentile-to-rank relationship, adjusted for registration-volume drift. This page does not publish a specific predicted number yet, since the July 2026 session's full round-wise closing-rank archive was still being finalised in counselling at the time of research; a methodology-disclosed prediction will be added once that archive is complete, following the same drift-correction approach used on this site's JEE Main and NEET UG pages.
Use the College Predictor with full methodology disclosure →INI-CET results are declared by AIIMS on its own portal, typically within about a week of the exam date; the July 2026 session's result followed this pattern, declared May 23, 2026, seven days after the May 16 exam. Scorecards are downloadable from aiimsexams.ac.in using the application number and other verification details specified in that session's result notice.
An INI-CET score is valid only for the counselling cycle tied to that specific session; it is not carried forward to a later session. A candidate who does not secure or accept a seat in one cycle's counselling must sit the exam again for the next session to be considered further.
Because INI-CET runs across multiple shifts and centres within a single exam day, AIIMS applies a percentile-based normalisation procedure across shifts, broadly comparable in principle to NTA's JEE Main normalisation: each candidate's raw score is converted into a percentile relative to their own shift before merit-list ranking. AIIMS has published a dedicated normalisation-procedure notice describing this method in detail.
AIIMS does not permit rechecking or re-evaluation of INI-CET results once declared. This is treated as a hard rule in the exam's own regulations; candidates should direct any specific-item objections to the provisional answer key window, if one is offered for that session, rather than expecting a post-result review.
INI-CET counselling is run entirely by AIIMS itself through aiimsexams.ac.in, covering seats at every participating institute: all AIIMS campuses, JIPMER Puducherry, PGIMER Chandigarh, NIMHANS Bengaluru, and SCTIMST Thiruvananthapuram. There is no separate JoSAA-style or MCC-style counselling authority sitting between the exam and the seat; one body runs the whole process.
Rank Medicine, Surgery, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology seats honestly against your actual specialty interest, not just institute prestige. A mid-tier AIIMS campus in a specialty you actually want is a stronger long-term choice than a top-ranked campus in a specialty you filled in only because the rank allowed it; INI-CET\'s course-level cutoff spread (single digits for Medicine at AIIMS Delhi versus low thousands for Anatomy at the same campus) means institute prestige and course competitiveness are not the same axis.
Do not assume every AIIMS campus behaves like AIIMS Delhi. The newer AIIMS campuses (Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur, Rishikesh, and others) generally close at less competitive ranks than AIIMS Delhi for the same course, a genuine opportunity for a candidate whose rank would not clear AIIMS Delhi\'s Medicine cutoff but comfortably clears a newer campus\'s.
Watch domicile-specific seats carefully if you are not from Karnataka or the North-East. NIMHANS reserves some Psychiatry seats by domicile; filling these as a general-category candidate outside that domicile pool wastes a choice slot that will simply be skipped over in allotment.
Do not treat the Open Round as a lesser fallback. Because INI-CET runs a single unified counselling process rather than splitting into AIQ and state-quota tracks the way NEET UG does, the Open Round genuinely redistributes seats vacated by candidates who accepted an earlier-round seat and then withdrew; a candidate who missed a narrow Round 1 or Round 2 cutoff by a small margin has a real shot in the Open Round, not just theoretical hope.
If seats remain vacant after the Open Round, individual institutes may conduct their own short-notice spot rounds for residual vacancies, particularly at less-competitive courses at the newer AIIMS campuses. These are institute-specific and typically require in-person reporting on short notice; check the specific institute's own admissions page directly, since AIIMS's central portal does not always aggregate every campus's spot-round activity in real time.
Talk to a counsellor about your strategy →Top 10 AIIMS PG-accepting institutes by NIRF Engineering rank. Each links to the full college page with placements, fees, hostel, and student reviews.
| NIRF rank | College | Location |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | AIIMS Delhi | New Delhi |
| #2 | PGIMER Chandigarh | Chandigarh |
| #4 | JIPMER Puducherry | Puducherry |
| #4 | NIMHANS Bengaluru | Bengaluru, Karnataka |
| #13 | AIIMS Rishikesh | Rishikesh, Uttarakhand |
| #14 | AIIMS Bhubaneswar | Bhubaneswar, Odisha |
| #19 | AIIMS Jodhpur | Jodhpur, Rajasthan |
| #25 | AIIMS Bhopal | Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh |
| #27 | AIIMS Patna | Patna, Bihar |
| #31 | AIIMS Raipur | Raipur, Chhattisgarh |
| Comparison | Mode | Conducting body | Frequency | College scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIIMS PG (INI-CET) vs NEET PG | Online CBT vs pen-and-paper/CBT (current NBEMS format) | AIIMS New Delhi vs National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences | Biannual vs Annual | AIIMS/JIPMER/PGIMER/NIMHANS/SCTIMST only vs every other MD/MS/PG-Diploma seat in the country |
| AIIMS PG (INI-CET) vs pre-merger AIIMS PGMEE/JIPMER PG/PGIMER PG | Single combined online exam vs separate exams (historical) | AIIMS vs each institute independently (discontinued) | Biannual vs annual/institute-specific (historical) | One test now covers what used to require separate applications to each institute |
| AIIMS PG (INI-CET) vs FMGE | PG-entrance MCQ vs licensure-qualifying MCQ | AIIMS vs National Board of Examinations | Biannual vs Biannual | Postgraduate admission vs practice-licence eligibility for foreign-MBBS graduates |
| AIIMS PG (INI-CET) vs state PG medical CETs | National, institute-specific scope vs state-domicile-restricted scope | AIIMS vs individual state authorities | Biannual vs Annual, varies by state | Fixed group of central institutes vs each state's own government and private medical colleges |
Pending verified contributors
6 to 8 verified test-taker reviews required. Curation mix: one recent topper (top 50 rank for their category), one average qualifier who secured a seat outside the top-tier AIIMS campuses, one non-qualifier giving an honest perspective, one repeat test-taker who qualified on a later attempt, one first-attempt test-taker, and one female test-taker for gender-specific operational notes. All scorecard-verified and session-stamped. A review from a candidate who prepared while working full internship or junior-residency hours would add real, non-generic value.
No. AIIMS's own standalone postgraduate entrance exam, once called AIIMS PGMEE, was folded into INI-CET years ago. There is no separate AIIMS-only PG entrance test running today; every AIIMS postgraduate seat is filled through INI-CET, the same combined exam that also covers JIPMER, PGIMER Chandigarh, NIMHANS, and SCTIMST.
No. INI-CET is the sole qualifying route into AIIMS, JIPMER, PGIMER, NIMHANS, and SCTIMST postgraduate seats. A NEET PG score has no standing in INI-CET counselling; you must separately register for and clear INI-CET.
The January 2027 session is the next cycle, with notification expected around September 2026 and the exam itself expected around November 2026, based on the prior cycle's rhythm. Both dates are tentative until AIIMS publishes the formal information bulletin.
A valid MBBS or BDS degree plus completion of the compulsory 12-month rotatory internship, with a minimum aggregate of 55% across all MBBS or BDS professional examinations for General, OBC-NCL, and EWS candidates, or 50% for SC and ST candidates. There is no upper age limit set by INI-CET itself and no cap on attempts.
The July 2026 session offered 1,581 seats across all participating institutes combined, with AIIMS New Delhi contributing the largest single share (206 seats), followed by PGIMER Chandigarh (134) and JIPMER Puducherry (123). Roughly 90,000 candidates registered for that same cycle.
Each correct answer earns +1 mark and each incorrect answer costs -1/3 mark, out of a maximum 200 across 200 questions. Because the exam runs across multiple shifts within a session, AIIMS applies a percentile-based normalisation across shifts before compiling the final merit list.
Course choice matters as much as raw rank. At AIIMS Delhi in the July 2026 session, General-category Round 1 closing ranks were in the single digits for MD General Medicine but in the low thousands for MD Anatomy at the very same campus.
No. AIIMS Delhi is consistently the most competitive campus across most courses. The newer AIIMS campuses (Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur, Rishikesh, and others) generally close at less competitive ranks for the same course.
No. AIIMS itself runs the entire counselling process for INI-CET, covering every participating institute, through its own portal. There is no separate central counselling authority the way JoSAA handles JEE Main or MCC handles NEET UG's All India Quota.
Only for the counselling cycle tied to the session in which you appeared. It does not carry forward to a later session; a candidate who wants a better seat later must sit INI-CET again in a subsequent session.
Not strictly, but the practical constraint most candidates face is protected study time around clinical duty rather than access to content. Structured coaching from providers like PrepLadder, Marrow, or DAMS genuinely helps candidates who need external accountability; a disciplined self-study candidate with standard textbooks and a solid MCQ bank can also succeed.
Your MBBS or BDS degree certificate, internship completion certificate, the INI-CET scorecard for the session you qualified in, a category certificate if applicable, and government-issued photo identification. Exact requirements can vary slightly by institute.
Aggregator coverage of this transition is genuinely inconsistent, with different articles citing 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 as the merger year, sometimes on the same site. What is not in dispute is the current state: there is no standalone AIIMS PG entrance exam running today, and INI-CET has been the sole route into AIIMS postgraduate seats for several full cycles now.
Sources
