MHT CET 2026: How Will Two Attempts Benefit Students

MHT CET 2026 will be held twice now in April and May, similar to JEE Mains. The two attempts will surely benefit students as students can improve their perfrormance in second attempt by evaluating their mistakes in first attempt.

The Maharashtra CET Cell has announced that MHT CET exam for engineering and Pharmacy courses will be conducted twice a year from 2026 onwards. The exam will be conducted in April and May over a period of 10-15 days. MHT CET 2026 exam dates have been also announced for both sessions.

More than 5 lakh students appear in MHT CET PCM group alone every year. In Pharmacy (PCB) group, around 2 lakh students take the exam. As the difficulty level of MHT CET is similar to JEE Mains exam, having two attempts will provide a fair opportunity to students to showcase their potential like students do in JEE.

This move is set to benefit lakhs of students who take the exam for admission to engineering and pharmacy courses in Maharashtra. Increase in number of attempts apparently enhances the chance of getting admission as students can improve their performance in second attempt by evaluating their mistakes in the first attempt.

How will two attempts benefit students?

The board exams for class 12 will be conducted between February 10 and March 11 whereas the first attempt of MHT CET will start from April 11. Students have got exactly one month time to streamline their MHT CET preparation for the session 1 exam. The second attempt will be conducted from May 14 onwards, which is again around 1 month from the first attempt. This ample time-gap between the exams will greatly help students to score better.

The question paper of MHT CET is prepared basis the Maharashtra Board textbooks of class 11 and 12 (State Council of Educational Research and Training, SCERT). Also, MHT CET covers only a few topics of class 11 in the exam. As the students will be studying full class 11 topics for their class 12 board exams, only a few topics have to studied for MHT CET, benefitting students at large. While setting the question paper, 20% weightage is given to class 11 syllabus and 80% to class 12.

MHT CET do not have negative marking criteria, which should be a great mental relief to students without having to worry for marks deductions in case of incorrect response.

MHT CET 2026 Exam Dates

The MHT CET 2026 session 1 exam is starting from April 11 whereas JEE Main 2026 exam date session 2 is April 2 to 9. With only one day gap between these to important exam, students might face difficulty to shift from JEE to MHT CET and it could be a big reason to worry for students planning to give both the exams.

Currently, registrations for JEE Main 2026 is ongoing for the first attempt exam. NTA JEE Mains 2026 registration last date session 1 is November 27, 2025. The application process for MHT CET is yet to start. The tentative MHT CET registration date 2026 is December 30, 2025.

Read More: JEE Main 2026 Registration Last Date November 27; Apply Now at jeemain.nta.nic.in