NUMS Aggregate Formula 2026: 50/40/10, Test Now 13 September

If you are applying to Army Medical College Rawalpindi, CMH Lahore, Bahria, Foundation University, NUST School of Health Sciences or any other NUMS-affiliated medical or dental college in Pakistan, the PMDC NMDCAT aggregate guide does not apply directly to you. NUMS conducts its own admission test (NUMS MDCAT), uses a different total marks structure, and publishes its own merit list separately from the PMDC cycle. This guide walks through the NUMS aggregate formula in full, explains how NUMS MDCAT differs from PMDC NMDCAT, and gives worked examples plus indicative cut-offs for the main NUMS colleges.

Run your own numbers in the NUMS Aggregate Calculator 2026 as you read.

Important upfront: NUMS rules around test format, total marks and weighting can change year to year. Always verify against the current cycle's official prospectus on numspak.edu.pk before relying on a specific figure. Final NUMS merit lists also factor in seat type (open / reciprocal / self / armed forces) and reserved quotas that this guide does not model.

The NUMS aggregate formula in one line

For the NUMS MBBS / BDS centralised admission cycle:

Aggregate % = (Matric % × 0.10) + (FSc % × 0.40) + (NUMS MDCAT score / 200 × 100 × 0.50)

Three components, three weights:

The weighting matches the widely cited PMDC formula (10/40/50), but the test is a different one. NUMS MDCAT is set by NUMS, scored out of 200, and the academic + psychological sections are combined into the same 200-mark total. PMDC NMDCAT is set by PMDC, scored out of 180, and follows a different syllabus. The two cannot be used interchangeably. For the parallel PMDC pathway (Punjab UHS, KP KMU, Sindh and AJK colleges) see our MDCAT Aggregate Formula 2026 guide with the matching MDCAT Aggregate Calculator.

NUMS MDCAT 2026 test format

The test has moved. NUMS MDCAT 2026 was advertised for Sunday 23 August 2026 and has been postponed to Sunday 13 September 2026, 10:00 AM, following flooding across Pakistan. The official advertisement PDF still circulates with the old August date printed on it, which is why several sites are still quoting 23 August. Registration reopened and closes with late fee on 19 August 2026 at 1600 hours. Fees are Rs 7,500 regular and Rs 8,500 late for centres in Pakistan, Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000 for the KSA centre.

If you are sitting both medical tests this year, the order matters: NUMS falls on 13 September and the PMDC national MDCAT on 20 September, one week apart, and both were rescheduled out of August.

Per NUMS’s own Table of Specifications for 2026, the paper is 200 MCQs in two parts:

Note this guide previously listed Biology at 65 and Physics at 30, which did not match NUMS’s specification and has been corrected. If you built a study plan off the old split you were over-weighting Biology and under-weighting Physics by ten questions each.

• No negative marking. Never leave an answer blank.
• NUMS publishes the intended difficulty mix: roughly 20% easy, 60% moderate, 20% hard, and in the sciences about 70% recall against 30% application.
• Paper-based, single morning session, English language.

Two pass marks that sit outside the aggregate

This is the part people miss. Your aggregate is one thing; passing the test is another, and a high aggregate does not rescue a low test score.

• NUMS MDCAT pass mark: 55% for MBBS, 50% for BDS. 55% of 200 is 110 marks.
• HSSC eligibility floor: minimum 60% aggregate in FSc Pre-Medical or IBCC equivalent.

For foreign seats only, a valid MCAT (USA) or UCAT (UK) at 50% is accepted in place of NUMS MDCAT.

This candidate is competitive but not safe. Rather than compare against a quoted cut-off, check the current college-wise selection lists on numspak.edu.pk, and remember merit falls with each successive list, out to a sixth in the last cycle.

Worked example 2: a borderline candidate

Same applicant with a weaker NUMS MDCAT: 1050/1100 Matric, 1020/1100 FSc, 130/200 NUMS MDCAT.

• Matric % = 95.45%
• FSc % = 92.73%
• NUMS % = 65.00%
• Matric weighted = 9.55
• FSc weighted = 37.09
• NUMS weighted = 32.50
• Aggregate = 9.55 + 37.09 + 32.50 = 79.14%

Same Matric and FSc, but NUMS MDCAT dropped from 85% to 65%. Aggregate dropped 10 full points (89.14 to 79.14). 79.14% is below most NUMS MBBS open-merit thresholds and would more likely land you in NUMS BDS or private programmes. The 50% NUMS-test weight makes test-day performance disproportionately important here, exactly as on the PMDC side.

What merit do you actually need?

This guide used to print a table of approximate cut-offs for Army Medical, CMH Lahore, Bahria, Foundation and Wah. It was removed in August 2026 because those figures could not be traced to NUMS and came from the same source as a table on our calculator page that turned out to be fabricated.

NUMS is more open than most universities here, so go to the source rather than to any calculator, this one included:

• College-wise selection lists are published as public PDFs on numspak.edu.pk. No login needed.
• Your own overall merit position and aggregate is at mbbsmerit.numspak.edu.pk.

Two things to understand before you read a list and draw a conclusion.

Merit is split by seat type. NUMS runs separate lists for open merit, reciprocal, self-finance and armed forces seats, and they close at different levels. A single headline number for a college is close to meaningless unless you know which list produced it.

Merit falls with each successive list, and the fall slows. In session 2025-26 NUMS ran upgradation out to a sixth list before declaring it final. Candidates decline seats or miss fee deadlines, so the bar drops each round. UET publishes its lists openly and the pattern there is instructive: across its three Fall 2026 lists every one of 33 programmes fell, but List 1 to List 2 averaged 1.36 points while List 2 to List 3 averaged only 0.37, and four programmes did not move at all. Expect the same shape here. Being two points below the first list is worth waiting on; being two points below the last one is not.

NUMS MDCAT vs PMDC NMDCAT

Two practical implications:

1. If you want to keep options open across both pathways, you typically need to sit both tests in the same admission cycle.
2. Even though the weighting is identical, a NUMS aggregate and a PMDC MDCAT aggregate are not directly comparable, because the test totals differ (200 vs 180). 85% on NUMS MDCAT and 85% on PMDC NMDCAT both yield the same weighted contribution to aggregate, but the raw scores and difficulty profiles are different.

Which colleges use NUMS MDCAT

NUMS MDCAT is the admission test for:

• Army Medical College Rawalpindi (MBBS and BDS sections)
• NUMS public sector medical and dental colleges
• NUMS private sector medical and dental colleges
• CMH Lahore Medical College and Institute of Dentistry
• CMH Institute of Medical Sciences, Bahawalpur (CIMS), and CIMS Dental College Multan
• CMH Kharian Medical College
• CMH Multan Institute of Medical Sciences
• HITEC Institute of Medical Sciences, Taxila
• HITEC Dental College, Taxila
• Quetta College of Dentistry
• Karachi Institute of Medical Sciences, Malir
• Quetta Institute of Medical Sciences
• Wah Medical College, Wah Cantt
• Bahria University Medical and Dental College, Karachi
• Bahria University Medical College, Islamabad
• Fazaia Medical College, Islamabad
• Fazaia Ruth Pfau Medical College, Karachi
• Foundation University Medical College, Islamabad
• NUST School of Health Sciences, Islamabad

Per PMDC notification, candidates applying to any of these colleges do not need to appear in the PMDC NMDCAT.

A-Level, IB and O-Level equivalence

NUMS does not accept A-Level / IB grades directly into the aggregate formula. The process:

1. Get an IBCC (Inter Board Committee of Chairmen) equivalence certificate that converts A-Level / IB grades to equivalent Pakistani Matric and Inter percentages. IBCC publishes the official conversion table. Our HEC Equivalence Calculator implements the standard A-Level to FSc / O-Level to Matric percentage mapping so you can pre-compute your equivalent before applying.
2. Use the IBCC-converted percentages in the NUMS aggregate formula.
3. Sit NUMS MDCAT itself, the test is the same regardless of academic background.

IBCC processing typically takes 2 to 4 weeks, so plan well ahead of the NUMS registration deadline.

Common mistakes when computing NUMS aggregate

1. Using the PMDC MDCAT total instead of NUMS. NUMS MDCAT is out of 200, the PMDC national MDCAT is out of 180. Dividing a NUMS score by 180 (or a PMDC score by 200) skews the percentage and the final aggregate.
2. Applying negative marking when there is none. NUMS MDCAT has no negative marking, stated in the official advertisement. Some older prep guides assume a -1 deduction, which does not apply.
3. Treating Army Medical College cut-off as a single number. AMC reserves seats across open merit, reciprocal, self-finance and armed forces categories. The "AMC cut-off" you see online usually refers to open merit only. Other seat types have separate cut-offs.
4. Confusing NUMS MDCAT result with PMDC NMDCAT result. Both produce a percentage, but they cannot be substituted for each other in either system. Submit the right result to the right portal.
5. Forgetting hafiz / extra-curricular marks. Some applicants are eligible for hafiz-e-Quran marks (typically up to 20). Confirm with the specific NUMS college's prospectus, the application policy may differ between colleges.