NEST 2026 Cutoff: Check NEST Cutoff & Previous Year Cutoff Marks

The NEST cutoff marks refer to the minimum marks required for a candidate to qualify and secure a rank in the merit list of NISER and CEBS. NEST exam authorities will release the cutoff marks for NEST along with the result. Applicants who will secure the NEST cutoff marks will be eligible to participate in the counselling process, which is held separately by NISER and CEBS for admission to their Integrated MSc courses.

SMAS is used frequently in preparing the result of NEST exam. 

The full-form of SMAS is the Section-wise Minimum Admissible Score. It is the cut off marks which applicants need to secure for each section of NEST paper.

Since there are different category candidates who appear in the exam hence they have seperate SMAS.  

Applicants who want to take admission in NISER and are from General category need to secure the passing marks in their category. 

Since general category cut off marks are higher than other categories hence applicants who belong to this category need to put more effort to take admission. 

This year NEST cut off marks for general category for NISER are in between 80 to 90 marks. Though final marks will be decided after the conlusion of the exam. 

The MAP is the cutoff percentile overall obtained by the candidates in NEST. The highest MAP is 100th percentile, and for each category, it is 95 percentile for the General category, 90 percentile for OBC category and 75 percentile for SC/ ST/ Divyangjan categories. Applicants are advised to secure the qualifying marks as well as the overall marks to pass the NEST exam. 

The NEST cutoff marks for session I, for NISER Bhubaneswar are mentioned below: 

Applicants who want to take admission in NISER needs to secure the passing marks decided by the authorities for this. The NISER cut off marks can be less than or equall to cut off marks for CEBS.  

Since last year passing criteria has been changed hence applicants need to just secure passing marks in any of three subjects. Candidates scoring equal to and above the MAP and in SMAS in three sections will qualify for NISER through NEST exam. 

The NEST Scoring system is based on the following factors.

• There are four sections of 60 marks each
• Each question carries three marks
• One mark will be removed for each wrong answer 
• Candidates have to attempt at least three sections
• Best of the three scores out of four sections will be considered.

Candidates seeking admission to NISER and UM–DAE CEBS for the Integrated MSc programme 2026–31 should be from the regular science stream in classes 11 and 12. All aspiring candidates must write the NEST 2026 examination. Candidates must have passed the Class 12 examination from any recognised Board in India in the years 2024 or 2025, or should be appearing for the same in 2026. Candidates who are appearing for the board examination in 2026 must pass it by the time of admission into the programme.

There are various factors which are taken into consideration while deciding the NEST cutoff marks. Some of them are mentioned below. 

1. Total number of test takers
2. Total number of seats
3. Difficulty level of the exam
4. Minimum qualifying marks.

The examination conducting body, NISER and UM-DAE CEBS, will release NEST cutoff marks for the applicants who want to take admission in participating institutes. The cutoff marks for NEST will be released along with the declaration of the result. Applicants securing the cutoff marks of NEST will be eligible to participate in the counselling held by the authorities. Applicants need to secure the passing marks in both the overall and individual categories.  

The NEST 2026 Counselling is likely to begin in the second week of July. There will be around four rounds of counselling. The number of rounds will depend on the number of remaining seats. Candidates passing the NEST exam will be eligible for the admission process.

The NEST exam counselling will be done in online mode only. The exam conducting authority will release the dates of counselling in official notification after the conclusion of the exam. 

Applicants are advised to check the NEST exam counselling schedule and visit the centre along with their academic as well as category related documents. 

The Section-wise Minimum Admissible Score or SMAS refers to the section-wise cut-off marks in NEST. The factors to calculate SMAS in NEST are given below.

• The total score of each candidate will be the sum of his/her best three scores out of the four sections.
• For each section, 20 per cent of the average of the best 100 scores in that section will be considered as SMAS. For example, if the average of the best 100 scores in the Chemistry section is 48 out of 60, then SMAS for the Chemistry section would be 48*0.20 = 9.6 marks, similar to other sections.
• SMAS for different sections can be of different numerical values.
• SMAS for the two sessions, for any particular section, can be of different numerical values.
• SMAS for OBC students would be 90 per cent of the respective SMAS for the general category Students. For example, if in the Chemistry section, the SMAS is 9.6 for general category students, then the SMAS for OBC students would be 8.64 (90 per cent of 9.6).
• SMAS for SC/ST/Divyangjan students would be 50 per cent of the respective SMAS for general category students. For example, if in the Chemistry section, the SMAS is 9.6 for general category students, then the SMAS for SC, ST, and Divyangjan students would be 4.8 (50 per cent of 9.6).

If a students fails to submi the expression of interest, it will be considered as they are no longer interested to get admision to NEST NISER institute and there seat will be given to another deseving students. Therefore, it is manadatory for students to submit the Expresison of Interest (EoI) before deadline.