Turning 18 in style is exactly what Mumbai resident Karthika Nair did, as she was named all-India female topper for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2021, the results for which were announced on Monday evening. She is one of three students from across the country to score 720 out of 720 (99.99 percentile) in the all-India exam. She shares the rank with Mrinal Kutteri from Telangana and Tanmay Gupta from Delhi (NCT).

“While I was anxious all day about the results, my birthday celebrations just got better once the result was announced. I put in a lot of effort to prepare for the paper but this result was beyond my expectations,” said the 18-year-old student, resident of Panvel. Karthika plans to try her hands with different fields but her main focus would be in Oncology, she said.

In a surprise move, the National Testing Agency—the nodal examination authority NEET-UG announced results by sending scorecards and ranks to students individually via emails. The otherwise routine process of announcing an overall rank list was finally released late on Monday. “After waiting for results for weeks together, I was surprised to see an email from the official NTA email id, ‘no-reply-neet.nta.nic.in’ with a subject line ‘NEET (UG)-2021 Score Card-Application No.’ I immediately checked with my friends to check if this was a joke but in some time many of us started receiving similar emails,” said Pratik Garodia, a NEET-UG aspirant.

As per figures shared by the NTA, 15.44 lakh students appeared for the NEET-UG exam held in pen-and-paper format across the country on September 12 this year. After delaying results by a few weeks, the decision of the examination body to email scorecards was not appreciated by all. “Each and every student has a login-id and can conveniently check their scores. By sending emails, the NTA has made the process worse because lakhs of students were waiting for results compared to a handful started receiving emails on Monday evening. This was an unnecessary move and created more anxiety among students,” said Sudha Shenoy, parent and activist.

Of the 15.44 lakh students who appeared for the exam, 8.7 lakh candidates cleared the exam. This includes 3.75 lakh male and 4.94 lakh female candidates. While only one transgender candidate qualified for admissions last year, eight transgender candidates cleared the exam this year. While Karthika took the first rank for Maharashtra, Hriday Mohite stood on the 5th place in the all-India rank list.

The delay in announcement of NEET-UG results was one of the worst since its inception, said parents. This delay, however, was caused by a host of reasons, including the conducting of examination which was marred with problems this time round. At least three cases of copying and cheating were recorded across Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra on the day of the exam, leading to a demand for re-examination by many students. This demand was struck down by the Supreme Court.

In October however, two students from Solapur in Maharashtra approached the Bombay high court demanding for a re-exam after their exam invigilator handed them mismatched copies of question and answer booklets. While the HC ruled in their favour, the apex court stayed the Bombay HC order in the “larger interest of lakhs of medical aspirants.”