Kakarla Jeevan Sai tops Telangana with 18th rank in NEET UG 2025

With five candidates in the top 100, Telangana recorded 41,584 qualifiers out of 70,259 test takers; nationwide, over 12 lakh qualified

Hyderabad: Kakarla Jeevan Sai Kumar of Telangana has bagged 18th rank in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) UG 2025 results declared on Saturday.

Telangana candidates among the top 100 rankers included Shanmukha Nishanth Akshintala (37), Mangari Varun (46), Yandrapati Shanmukh (48), and Bidisha Majee (95), who stood at 13th position among female top 20 rankers.

Kumar said his grandmother passed away from cancer when he was young. “The pain of not being able to save her haunted me. There were no doctors in my family. That’s when I made a decision to become a doctor,” he said.

Nishanth said initially he did not expect a good rank as the questions were tough, lengthy and consumed a lot of time. “After going through the result, I felt ecstatic. I decided to join AIIMS Delhi,” said Nishanth, a student of Sri Chaitanya Junior College.

An elated Nishanth, whose brother is a medico, said he used to study from 8.30 am to 10.30 pm with one-hour break in between for games. “I used to play table tennis or gully cricket. Since I used to stay in the hostel, I do not have a social media account,” he shared.

Shanmukh said he always wanted to study medicine since his childhood. “After the examination, I was not that confident about my performance. But I am really happy after checking my result. My hard work paid off,” he said.

This year, 72,094 candidates registered, 70,259 appeared and 41,584 qualified in Telangana. Results have been made available on the website https://neet.nta.nic.in/.