LAHORE: The Pakistan Association of Private Medical and Dental Institutions (PAMI) has issued a new admission policy for bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBBS) and bachelor of dental surgery (BDS) programmes for the 2020-21 session.

According to the PAMI, the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) shall put up the online admission portal with an automated system. The students seeking admission to private colleges will apply on the portal submitting their FSc / HSSC marks.

When applying a student will have the choice to select as many colleges as they are interested in applying to. Application fee charged by PMC for use of the portal will be Rs500 paid to PMC by the student for the automated system.

The PAMI said that the PMC having conducted the MDCAT examination as per the Act shall calculate weightage up to 80% of the aggregate to determine merit of each applying student. This shall be allocated 50% to MDCAT and 30% to FSC.

“Having calculated 80% of the aggregate merit, PMC shall forward the total list pertaining to all the relevant colleges on 1st January 2020, who shall carry out their own interview which shall have a weightage of 20%”, said the PAMI.

Each college will display on their website the structure of the interview for the information of students before Nov 25. The college shall apply the performance of the interview and consolidated with the MDCAT / FSC aggregate of the student.

The college shall finalise the total aggregate out of 100% for final merit of the students. This aggregate shall be used by the college for the purpose of admission to the MBBS / BDS classes.

“The colleges shall provide to PMC the final merit of all applying student after calculation of the 100% merit aggregate on completion of interviews,” said the PAMI.

The college shall not seek to admit any student other than students who have applied to the college as per the list provided by PMC. The admissions shall be concluded by all colleges by Feb 15, 2021.

If any seats remain vacant after 15th, each college shall have 7 days to fill such seats from students who may have applied to other colleges but did not obtain admission in such colleges, subject to them being interviewed by the college and admission being on merit.

The admitted student will pay the fee advertised by the college in advance directly to the college and confirm their admission.

It further stated that each college will publish on its website the final admitted list of students and send its final admitted list to its affiliated University who will certify the same and send to PMC after verifying the students FSc degree and marks etc. directly.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2020