What is MDCAT?
The medical and dental college admission test (MDCAT) is a mandatory test conducted each year by the university of health sciences (UHS) for admission to medical and dental colleges of Punjab. It is a prerequisite for the medical and dental colleges of both public and private sectors that the PMDC recognizes. So, if you are an F.S.C. pre-medical student trying to know the details about the preparation for the test, you are in the right place. This article will talk about all the aspects of MDCAT in-depth, including the details of the test, eligibility criteria, preparation tips, and ways to improve the overall score.
You are probably already aware that passing MDCAT is not an easy feat. Thousands of students apply each year to try their luck, but very few make it up to the mark. We recognize and hone the students’ potential who want to become doctors or dentists and help them manifest their dreams into reality. But MDCAT preparation requires dedication, hard work, and time. Therefore, we advise our students to start exam prep early to have an advantage over others. This way, you will get a head start over the people you will compete against for seats. Enroll in our MDCAT preparation course if you are in F.S.C. pre-medical or have completed intermediate, or if you are a repeater.
List of UHS affiliated medical colleges:
- There is a total of government 19 medical colleges in Punjab:
- Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore
- Ameer ud Din (PGMI) Medical College, Lahore
- Army Medical College, Rawalpindi
- D.G Khan Medical College, Dera Ghazi Khan
- Fatima Jinnah Medical College for Women, Lahore
- Federal Medical College Islamabad
- Gujranwala Medical College, Gujranwala
- Khwaja Muhammad Safdar Medical College, Sialkot
- King Edward Medical University, Lahore
- Nawaz Sharif Medical College, Gujrat
- Nishtar Medical College, Multan
- Punjab Medical College, Faislabad
- Quaid e Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur
- Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi
- Sahiwal Medical College, Sahiwal
- Sargodha Medical College, Sargodha
- Services Institute of Medical Sciences, Lahore
- Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Medical & Dental College, Lahore
- Sheikh Zayed Medical College/Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan
What other fields can you choose after taking MDCAT?
The scope of MDCAT is not restricted to medicine and dentistry. There is a whole world of allied health sciences out there that you can opt for after scoring good marks in this entrance exam. But it depends on the institute. Some institutes exempt the condition of MDCAT and only grant admission based on your intermediate and matric scores. At the same time, for most universities, it is compulsory to take MDCAT as your admission will be decided on the total aggregate of the MDCAT, intermediate, and matric scores. And in today’s age of competition, where everyone aspires to become a doctor, not everyone gets selected in medical and dental colleges, so we advise you to keep your options open. Here is a list of medical fields you can choose apart from medicine and dentistry:
- Pharmacy
- MLT
- Nursing
- (D.N.D.) Nutritionist and Dietist
- Optometry (Eyes and Visual system)
- Laboratory sciences (pathology lab)
- Radiology (medical imagining)
- M.I.T. (medical imaging technology)
- Speech and language therapy
- Cardiac Perfusion
How to study to achieve a higher score on MDCAT?
One of the major reasons students don’t reach the goal they had in their minds is that they fail to distinguish the high importance topics from low importance topics. The key is dividing your time based on the worth and weightage of topics rather than studying them in chronological order. That way, you can determine where you should make more effort and where you should put less effort. Top Grades’ intelligent statistical tools help you analyze these topics via its efficient technology. Here are three kinds of topics in the MDCAT syllabus.
- High Importance topic:
These should be your top priority as they are most likely to appear in the exam. That’s why you should give them more amount of time as compared to the other topics. Start your preparation with them, and don’t forget to revise them before the test.
- Medium importance topics:
These topics should be your second priority. Once you are done with the topics in the high importance category, you should start preparing these topics as the questions from these topics are also likely to appear in the exam.
- Low importance topics:
Low importance is the least likely topic to come in the MDCAT exam. But don’t skip them; you still need to prepare them to give them less time than the first two brackets. You can figure out these categories by figuring out the pattern in a past paper.