MHT CET Two Attempts: How 2026 Worked and What It Means for 2027

In 2026 the State CET Cell ran MHT CET twice for each group — PCM and PCB each had a first and a second attempt, about three weeks apart for PCM and two weeks apart for PCB — and used the better of a candidate’s two total percentiles for admission. It was the first time, and it changed how results and cut-offs behave. This guide sets out exactly how the 2026 attempts worked, using the CET Cell’s brochure, notices and result press notes, and separates what is known about 2027 (nothing official yet) from what is being reported.

CET Cell press notes (June 2026) and MHT-CET 2026 brochure.

About 63% as many candidates sat the PCM second attempt as the first, and about 36% for PCB (our arithmetic: 2,85,121 ÷ 4,54,069 and 95,631 ÷ 2,63,213). What cannot be worked out is how many different people sat MHT CET in 2026: the CET Cell has not published a count of candidates who took both attempts, so the two turnouts cannot be added.

Because only the total percentile is compared, a candidate cannot take a strong Physics score from one attempt and a strong Mathematics score from the other. And ties in the CAP merit list are broken on “higher marks or score in Mathematics at CET”, then Physics, then Chemistry (CAP Information Brochure 2026-27, printed pp. 60–61), so — on our reading of that clause alongside the best-of-two rule — the attempt with the better total also supplies the subject scores used to break a tie.

The 2026 fee was charged per group, per attempt: ₹1,300 for General, OMS and J&K-migrant candidates, ₹1,000 for Maharashtra reserved, PwD, orphan and transgender candidates — so “both attempts” doubled it. It had been ₹1,000 and ₹800 per group in 2025, with one attempt.

The CET Cell publishes no figure for how many candidates improved. Two official numbers point the same way. The final CAP merit list of Maharashtra State PCM candidates shows 35 at 100 percentile — more than the 26 of the first attempt alone and fewer than 26 + 12 = 38, which is what best-of-two with some overlap would produce (our reading). And across the whole distribution, 2026 percentiles are higher than 2025’s at the same merit position: state merit number 50,000 was 85.06 percentile in 2025 and 88.11 in 2026. That is what taking each candidate’s better score does to a population — and it is why 2026 cut-off percentiles cannot be compared with 2025’s. The merit-number guide in this series explains the shift.

If a December first attempt does happen, it would move the exam four months earlier than any of the last three years, and a Class 12 student would sit it before the board exams. That is a reason to cover the Class 12 syllabus early — 80% of the questions come from it — rather than a reason to believe a date that the CET Cell has not published.