MNS Cut-Off for NEET 2026: What the Army Publishes and What It Does Not

Search for "MNS cut off 2026" and you will find a number. Several, in fact: 380, 450, 480, "450-500 expected", and on a sister page "300-400 is safe". None of them comes from the Army. The 2025 and 2026 admission advertisements for the B.Sc (Nursing) course at the six Army Colleges of Nursing do not print a cut-off, a category-wise cut-off, a minimum NEET score for the shortlist, or the weights of the stages. This guide lays out exactly what is published, what is only reported, and what you can do with the official numbers that do exist.

Advertisements 2025 and 2026; the 2026 shortlist list (our count); NTA press release of 16 July 2026.

The advertisement says the shortlist is made "through NEET (UG) 2026 scores" and that the reference numbers of shortlisted candidates are displayed on the Join Indian Army website. It does not say how high a score you need to be on that list, and it does not say how the shortlist size was chosen. After screening, the final selection is "based on the combined merit of NEET (UG) 2026 scores + ToGIGE score + Psychological Assessment and Interview, subject to medical fitness", with colleges allotted by merit cum choice. The weights of those parts are not printed either.

Both advertisements require you to qualify NEET (UG) of the same year. "Qualify" has an official meaning from NTA, and it is a low bar compared with anything a military shortlist is likely to use. The Information Bulletin sets the qualifying marks at the 50th percentile for the Unreserved and General-EWS categories, the 40th percentile for SC, ST and OBC-NCL, and the 45th percentile for Unreserved and EWS candidates with benchmark disabilities. The marks those percentiles translate to move every year with the paper.

The 2026 cycle is unusual, and it matters for every score you will see quoted. NTA cancelled the NEET (UG) examination held on 3 May 2026 (press release of 12 May 2026) and held a re-examination on 21 June 2026 (public notice of 15 May 2026). The result came on 16 July 2026. NTA's press release gives these figures: close to 20 lakh candidates appeared at 5,440 centres; 11.21 lakh qualified; more than 58 per cent of those who qualified are women; 19 candidates scored above 700 out of 720; 1,492 scored 650 and above; 10,160 scored 600 and above; and 90,780 scored 500 and above. The highest score was 715.

The only way to see how selective the Army route is, without a cut-off, is to line up the counts that are published. They come from different sources and different groups of people, so treat the ratios as orientation rather than odds.

Coaching-academy pages publish year-wise MNS "cut-offs". We read the two that rank highest and put them side by side. Neither names a source document, and the same academy gives two different answers to the same question.

One check you can make with the official bands: NTA counts 90,780 candidates, of every gender, at 500 marks and above in 2026. The Army's shortlist was about 2,200 names, roughly 10 per seat. A list of that size is consistent with a list cut by size among those who registered rather than by a mark announced in advance, but that is our inference and the Army has not said so. It is one more reason not to treat any single score as "the cut-off".

Two features of this route keep it separate from the civilian B.Sc Nursing counselling you may be comparing it with. First, the Army pool is women only, and the notice sets a first-attempt rule for 10+2 and a marital-status rule, so the field is not "all NEET candidates". Second, seats are fixed at 220 across six colleges, so the number of candidates matters more than the mark. The seat guide lists each college and its university.