AIPMT is the national level entrance exam for the degree of MBBS and BDS in the government instates for medical and dental. AIPMT stands for All India Pre-Medical Test, which is organized by the help of national educational body named CBSE i.e. Central Board of Secondary Education on the first Sunday of the month of May every year. For the current year 2016, the exam schedules on May 1 i.e. on first Sunday of May. It is very popular entrance exam in India with over 6 lakhs candidates registering for the examination in the fight for around 3500 seats of MBBS and BDS of the dental and medical colleges on various states except Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Jammu & Kashmir. The various institutes are required to reserve 15% of their total seats for the students coming from AIPMT.
AIPMT Exam is two stage examinations with AIPMT Prelims as the first round and AIPMT Mains as the second round. Those who get through the Prelims round are eligible for the second round and after clearing AIPMT Mains, seats are allotted according to the All India Ranking secured by the student. The maximum time period of the examination is 3 hours and there are total 180 questions divided into three basic sections of science: physics, chemistry and biology. Biology has further two sections of Botany and Zoology. So in all there are 4 sections, each carrying 45 questions. The marks allotted for each correct answer are 4. But one has to be careful with the wrong attempts as there is negative marking. For each wrong answer, 1 mark is deducted. The un-attempted questions do not fetch any negative marks. The date of the Exam as already mentioned for this year is May 1 and the timings are from 10:00am to 1:00pm. The result of the Prelims is expected to be declared on or before June5, 2016.
Although the final seats allocated to the students are on merit basis but there is a system of reservation for the SC, ST and OBC. There was no reservation before 2009 and the allotment was completely on the basis of merits. However, Arjun Sigh was heading the Human Resources Office made a strong recommendation for the reservation, which was eventually adopted. The current scenario after the reservation allows 15% of the total seats to the SC category, 8% for the ST category and 22% of the total seats are locked for OBC. However in case of OBC, those who belong to the creamy layer do not qualify for the advantages. They are treated like general category.
Several Institutes belonging to various Universities and Governments also consider the results of AIPMT as the sole criterion for the admission in MBBS and BDS. There are total eight states who will be voluntarily participating along with 3 medical colleges.
Talking about the age limit for All India Pre-Dental Entrance Test, a candidate is required to have attained age of minimum 17 years by Dec 31 2016. The upper limit for the age is 25 years maximum. However, there is a relaxation of 5 years for the students belong to various categories for which the maximum age limit is 30 years. This means that a student belong to any one of the three categories (Sc, ST or OBC) must have the date of birth in the range of 01/01/87 to 01/01/2000 and those belonging to general category must have their date of birth within 01/01/92 and 01/01/2000. Only the candidates having Indian Citizenship are eligible for this examination. However, Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) can also register for the examination and will be considered.