is merit no. and rank means same
Hello Aspirant,
Rank in an exam is the position assigned to you among others who competed with you, based on the percentile you have scored .Percentile is a score based on how many people have scored below you . Now coming to merit number, imagine you applied to a university for a course along with 50 other applications, here you will be assigned a merit number according to your rank in comparison to those applicants. So a merit number is the number assigned to you on a merit list . Note that I have explained in general.
All the best