[adenosine]

This has been bothering me a little bit lol. The title speaks for itself. It seems that there was a general increase in the merit of all candidates for 2016-2017 admissions for MBBS. I have attached below merit lists for various govt. colleges. You can see for yourself, but for simplicity:

King Edward Medical University closing merit 2013, 2014, and 2015 was 90.9541, 90.2926, and 90.2312, respectively, but in 2016 it was 92.3727! Huge bump up.

Allama Iqbal Medical College closing merit 2013, 2014, and 2015 was 89.5494, 88.9372, and 88.9333, respectively, but in 2016 it was 91.3182, higher than King Edward's closing merit in years prior to 2016.

Nishtar Medical College went from roughly 87 to nearly 90! Sheikh Zayed Medical College's went from 87 to nearly 89 too, and Services Institute of Medical Sciences went from 88 to 90 above.

Same goes for others like Fatima Jinnah Medical College.

This is pretty alarming, at least for me. There seems to be an overall 2% increase out of nowhere across the board.

One theory that I have is that either 2016's (last year's) MCAT was uniquely easy and/or, the other theory I have, which I think is more likely, is that everybody got 20 marks free due to 4 questions being crossed out in the MCAT. For some reason they were incorrect or discounted, and this gave everyone a free 20 marks. After reducing 20 marks and recalculating the closing merit, the situation does seem to get better and allign with the previous years' merits.

Any thoughts?

 

[mdaiem]

I think it has more to do with the MCAT being shamelessly easy. I gave it last year and it was all ratta. Only 2 numerical problems in physics out of 44 mcqs. The rest of the whole MCAT was just book lines. Loads of people did well which is why it shot up. This year it will most probably drop back to the average values considering the syllabus change and the paper might be comparatively difficult

 

[adenosine]

Hmmm yeah that makes sense. Plus the 20 marks boost probably aided too assuming that if they were regular questions, there would have been a lower probability of everyone getting them correct, which is what the 20 marks boost would imply. Let's hope it's better this year. I for one was siding with private colleges as an O/A Level student, but now a voice inside me says I should give my best shot at the MCAT and perhaps save a lot of money for post MBBS studied and visa processes rather than spending it all in private college tuition fees.

All the best to you! And, so this means, you're a repeater?

 

[mdaiem]

Yeah didn't study last year at all. But prepping hard for every test this year. I'd suggest you to give your best for the MCAT considering nearly every private college also accepts MCAT

 

[adenosine]

Absolutely! Let's hope all of our efforts pay off!