KARACHI, April 30: The process of receiving applications from the candidates seeking admissions to MBBS at Dow Medical College (DMC) and Sindh Medical College (SMC) as well as in the bachelors of dental surgery (BDS) course at Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan Institute of Oral Health Sciences drew to a close on Wednesday.

The candidates who submitted the applications would now be required to appear in the entry test scheduled to be held on June 29, sources at the Dow University of Health Sciences said.

The DUHS has decided to hold the entry test immediately after the completion of intermediate (pre-medical group) annual examinations-2008. However, some candidates seeking admissions to the Dow and Sindh medical colleges seem unhappy over the schedule of entry test, saying that this way they would not get time for test’s preparation as at the moment they were busy in preparing for intermediate exams. They said that since their intermediate examinations, which were scheduled to begin in the mid of May, would continue till the end of third week of June they would be left with no time for entry test’s preparation as it had been scheduled to be held on June 29.They said that it was beyond their comprehension that why the DUHS had decided to hold the entry test soon after the intermediate examinations when none of other public and private sector medical and engineering colleges and universities, except for the Aga Khan University, had so far announced the admission policy.

Underscoring the need for adopting a uniform policy by all medical and engineering colleges and universities of the province, the students seeking admission to the DMC and SMC have urged the governor, who is the controlling authority of all the public sector universities in Sindh, to direct the DUHS to hold the entry test by mid-August so that they could concentrate on their upcoming intermediate examinations and have ample time to prepare for the entry test of medical colleges.

When contacted, senior officials associated with the admission directorate of the DUHS said that the candidates must not worry about the admission test because the entry test paper would be devised from the syllabus of both parts of intermediate examinations, which they would have studied while preparing for their intermediate examinations.

“In fact, the decision of holding the entry test shortly after the intermediate examinations has been taken in the interest of both the students and their parents,” they said. This way, the officials said, parents would save a considerable amount of fee that they would have to pay to coaching centres for getting their wards prepared for the entry test but also to ensure that the academic session of the medical colleges was not delayed.