I've been answering NEET counselling questions on Quora for almost a decade. 272 answers. 2.3 million reads. Most of them from parents who found me at 11pm because their counsellor had stopped picking up the phone.
The questions are always the same.
"My son got a seat in Round 1. The counsellor said hold for Round 2. Round 2 results came. He got nothing. Now what?"
"We paid ₹40,000 to a counsellor. He gave us a printed list. The list was from last year. We didn't know."
"The counsellor disappeared after Round 1. I'm trying to figure out stray vacancy alone."
Most counselling advice in India isn't data-backed. It's just basic facts repeated by someone who charges you to repeat them.
Fees, deadlines, eligibility — these are public. Anyone can find them. Counsellors charge ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 to tell you what's already on the MCC website.
What's missing is the part that actually matters: behavioural data. Who actually joined which college. Who left. Where they went in Round 2. What stray vacancy looked like at your rank last year. None of this is in the brochure.
Most counsellors don't have it because parsing it is engineering work, not counselling work.
Last year, 60 students were allotted KMC Manipal but never reported. They had state alternatives their counsellor didn't mention. We tracked every one of the 39,478 MCC allotments — round by round, college by college.
Counselling is not a one-time call. It's a 60-day process across 3 rounds. Most counsellors don't stay.
They show up before Round 1, give you a list, take payment. Then they're busy with the next family by Round 2.
The hardest decisions in NEET counselling don't happen in Round 1. They happen between rounds. When you've been allotted somewhere okay and have to decide whether to hold or upgrade. When the deposit is now at stake. When stray vacancy opens and you have 48 hours to decide if it's worth the gamble.
By that point, most families are figuring it out alone. Often wrongly.
A bad decision in Round 2 doesn't just cost a deposit. It changes a career.
A student who panics in Round 2 and accepts the wrong college because no one explained the upgrade math is locked in for five years. The MBBS state often determines PG eligibility. The bond decides whether they can practice freely. The fee structure decides whether they graduate with debt.
These are not small details. They are the decision.
So we built Formity differently.
We don't sell counselling calls. We built a product.
We don't disappear after Round 1. The product runs from May to September.
We don't recycle last year's lists. We parse MCC and state data every season.
We charge ₹7,990. Once. Every college. Every round. Every state. May to September.
If you've been told that ₹40,000 buys you better counselling than ₹7,990, ask the counsellor to show you their data.
Ask if they'll be available in August.
Ask if their list is from this year.
If they can't answer those three questions clearly — you have your answer.
— Vishwajeet Ranjan
Founder, Formity. Since 2016.