KARACHI: Not a single candidate from Karachi Division is among the top 20 students in the Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) in Sindh.

According to the results announced by the Sukkur IBA (SIBA) Testing Services on Monday, the highest marks — 179 out of 180 — were secured by a female candidate from Shikarpur, followed by 178 secured by two candidates from Tharparkar and one each from Larkana and Qambar-Shahdadkot.

The remaining 15 spots were secured by candidates from Badin, Naushahro Feroze, Mirpurkhas, Shaheed Benazir­abad, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Shikarpur, Tharparkar, Dadu, Larkana and Khairpur.

The first candidate from Karachi was at serial No 21 in the results posted on the SIBA website.

The MDCAT-2026 was held on Sept 20 across nine centres — two in Karachi and one each in Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Mirpurkhas, Shaheed Benazirabad, Larkana, Sukkur and Islamabad.

Speaking at a press conference in Sukkur on Monday, Sukkur IBA University Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asif Ahmed Shaikh said female students had achieved remarkable success in the test, according to APP.

He said that out of 33,336 candidates who appeared in the test, 22,538 female students were declared successful.

According to Prof Shaikh, over 16,500 female and male candidates qualified for MBBS.

He said four candidates left their papers blank. “It is possible they did so on someone’s assurance. There are also 21 candidates who scored only 30 marks. The list of these candidates will be handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency to determine why the papers were left blank and what led to the low scores,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2026