Do women need the reserved seats? What the Telangana MBBS allotment data shows

In Telangana MBBS counselling, a share of seats in each category is set aside for women. The allotment lists label these FEM, and the remaining seats GEN. A common assumption is that a female candidate should therefore look only at the FEM cutoff. The data suggests that is often the wrong approach.

Women win general seats too

We matched the 2025-26 first- and second-round allotment lists to the merit list, which records each candidate's gender. Of the allotment entries we could match, about 6,100 belonged to women. Roughly 3,100 of those were under the women-reserved FEM seats, and roughly 3,000 were under GEN seats, where women compete openly against everyone. Women held around two-thirds of the entries overall.

A caveat: these are allotment entries across two rounds, so a candidate who appears in both rounds is counted twice. The pattern is still clear. The reserved seats are not the only route, and for many women they are not even the main one.

The reserved cutoff is usually not easier

You might expect the FEM cutoff to be more forgiving. Across about 900 college, category and round combinations where both a GEN and a FEM closing rank existed, the FEM cutoff was tighter in roughly 89% of cases. The median FEM closing rank was about 92% of the GEN one. In other words, the reserved seats attract strong competition because so many high-ranking women are competing for them.

There are exceptions. In a small number of cells, mostly at less-crowded colleges, the FEM cutoff was noticeably more generous, occasionally by a wide margin.

What female candidates should do

• Do not filter yourself down to FEM seats only. You are eligible for both GEN and FEM seats, so check both.
• Take the better of the two for each college. Usually that will be GEN, but occasionally FEM opens a door.
• Male candidates are only eligible for GEN seats, so for them the FEM figures are not relevant.

Our predictor does this automatically: choose Female and it shows the more favourable of the two at each college, and tells you when the reserved-for-women route is the one that helps. This analysis uses a single year of matched data, so we will revisit it as more years are added.