UGC NET December 2025 Expected Cutoff for General Category

The knowledge of the UGC NET December 2025 expected cutoff for General category is very important for all candidates who are planning to appear for JRF, Assistant Professor, or PhD admission. Every year, general category candidates face the most competition and therefore, knowing the cutoff of the general category students can help in understanding the safe target score to qualify the exam.

The official UGC NET 2025 Cutoff will be released after the result is declared, but before that, an analysis of the expected cutoffs give a clear idea of the original scores. There are many factors that affect the expected cutoff such as, previous years’ trends, exam difficulty level, and the number of candidates appearing. It is also important to remember that to qualify in the exam, it is necessary to score at least 40% marks in total for the general category candidates. But this is only the minimum scores, the actual cutoff marks are way higher than this. This article presents an insight into the UGC NET expected cutoff December 2025 based on the previous year trends.

Subject-wise UGC NET Expected Cutoff December 2025 (General Category)

Using the trend in results and expert analysis, the following is the UGC NET December 2025 Expected cutoff list of different subjects of UGC NET December, 2025, in the General (Unreserved) Categories.

Subject	JRF Expected Cutoff	Assistant Professor Expected Cutoff	PhD Only Expected Cutoff
Political Science	264	238	206
Philosophy	240	210	186
Sociology	234	205	180
Economics / Rural Economics	215	170	166
Commerce	200	176	152
History	202	180	160
English	204	178	146
Law	215	186	174
Mass Communication and Journalism	210	195	170
Hindi	205	176	158

Political Science will have the highest competition among all subjects in the UGC NET exam being held in December 2025, and the cutoffs are expected to be around 264 for JRF, 238 for Assistant Professor, and around 206 for PhD eligibility. Philosophy and Sociology are likely to have cutoffs of 240 and 234 respectively for JRF, and eligibility cutoffs of around 210 and 205 respectively for Assistant Professor. In Economics/Rural Economics, the cutoff for JRF will be around 215, while the eligibility cutoff for Assistant Professor will remain around 170. Cutoffs for History are expected to be lower, around 202 and 180 respectively for JRF and Assistant Professor.

Also Read: UGC NET Law Cutoff December 2025 (Expected): Check Category-wise Cutoff for PhD, JRF & Assistant Professor

Factors Affecting UGC NET December 2025 Cutoff

There are a lot of factors and variables affecting the expected cutoff in the UGC NET every year. The first and most significant factor could be the number of students who appear in the exam; if more students appear for the exam, then the cutoff will naturally rise as there will be more competition in the exam. The other significant factor could be the level of the question paper; if it is more difficult to some extent, then not many students will perform well in the exam, and as a result, the cutoff will naturally be lower. The experts and analysts therefore refer to the previous year’s cutoff pattern in making their predictions about the expected cutoff in the coming year.

Highlights of UGC NET Expected Cutoff December 2025

The outcome of the UGC NET 2025 will either confirm that the candidates are eligible to take up the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), Assistant Professor, or PhD positions. The total number of papers that will be subject to examination is 85 papers and the cut-offs of each subject varies according to the category of the candidate. Once the examination is over, the outcome is typically issued in 1-2 months, including the cut-offs in every category. This assists the candidates in knowing that they have got the required marks for that particular qualification.

Generally, the UGC NET Expected cutoff December 2025 for the General category clearly specifies that the individuals should not only rely on the minimum qualification cut-offs. The individuals need to perform better than the cut-offs in order to give themselves a better chance of being selected.