Tharparkar shines, Karachi draws blank in MDCAT top 20

From the parched sands of Tharparkar to the country's medical classrooms, students from Sindh's most deprived district have delivered a result that has turned the MDCAT merit list on its head - with five Tharparkar candidates breaking into the top 20, while Karachi drew a blank. The results of the Medical and Dental College Admission Test MDCAT 2026, conducted by IBA Sukkur for admissions to medical colleges and universities across the province, produced another surprise: the province's biggest metropolis failed to place a single candidate among the 20 highest scorers, despite thousands of its students sitting the test. Tharparkar's remarkable showing did not stop at the top 20. Twelve students from the desert district made it into the top 50, accounting for nearly a quarter of the highest scorers. The top 20 candidates secured between 176 and 179 marks out of 180, underscoring the intensity of competition. The results show that Karachi's candidates begin to feature more prominently further down the merit list. Of the top 100 candidates, 18 are from Karachi, rising to 37 among the top 200, 111 among the top 500 and 210 among the top 1,000. Among the top 10,000 successful candidates, 3,327 are from Karachi. A total of 33,336 candidates appeared for the MDCAT in Sindh, of whom 16,507 passed, putting the overall success rate at 49.5%. Karachi had 9,505 candidates appear, with 5,492 qualifying - a success rate of 57.8%. The district-wise results also placed Karachi East at the top, with 62% of its candidates qualifying, followed by Karachi Central at 59.9% and Tharparkar at 59.7%. The passing threshold for MBBS admissions was 99 out of 180 marks. In Tharparkar, 613 of 1,027 candidates passed. Larkana recorded 623 successful candidates out of 1,410, while Mirpurkhas had 571 qualifiers out of 1,262. Sukkur recorded 503 passes among 984 candidates. In other districts, 265 of 672 candidates from Jamshoro passed, compared with 652 of 1,611 from Hyderabad, 970 of 2,189 from Khairpur, 669 of 1,441 from Dadu, 630 of 1,485 from Shaheed Benazirabad and 181 of 398 candidates from Thatta.