MDCAT Preparation Timeline: From Registration to Merit List
The Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) is the single highest-stakes exam in Pakistan's education calendar for pre-medical students, and its timeline follows a broadly consistent annual pattern — even though exact dates shift year to year based on the Pakistan Medical Commission's (now Pakistan Medical & Dental Council) announcements.
Registration and eligibility
Registration typically opens in the months following FSc Part-II board exams, once your Intermediate result is available (or with a provisional/estimated result in some cycles). Eligibility generally requires a minimum FSc percentage in pre-medical subjects, so confirm the current year's threshold before assuming you qualify.
Sitting the test
MDCAT is administered as a single national test (with province-specific variants historically, though the trend has moved toward greater standardization), scored out of 200, covering Biology, Chemistry, Physics, English, and Logical Reasoning in fixed proportions set by the testing body each year.
After the result: the aggregate, not the raw score, decides admission
Your raw MDCAT score alone doesn't determine where you get in — it's combined with your Matric and FSc percentages into a weighted aggregate that differs by college. The standard PMDC/UHS formula used by colleges like King Edward and Allama Iqbal Medical College weights Matric at 10%, FSc at 40%, and MDCAT at 50%. NUMS uses a distinct formula with no Matric component at all. Work out your own numbers with the MDCAT Aggregate Calculator as soon as your MDCAT result is out, so you know realistically where you stand before merit lists are published.
Merit lists and multiple rounds
Public medical colleges publish merit lists in stages — an initial list followed by successive rounds as seats vacate through non-confirmation or withdrawal. Closing merit shifts meaningfully between the first and later lists, so don't judge your chances purely from the opening list's cutoff.
NUMS needs a separate registration
If you're targeting a NUMS-affiliated college (including several armed-forces-linked medical institutions), remember that sitting MDCAT alone isn't enough — NUMS requires its own separate portal registration in addition to your standard MDCAT/PMDC registration, and it's easy to miss this step if you assume one registration covers both.
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