Moazzma,

I tried applying to government colleges in Pakistan before I came to Shifa. It is a long process. First of all you can't just randomly apply to any govt college in any city. There is a thing called "domicile" in Pakistan, which means that you are only allowed to apply to colleges that fall under your domicile. For instance, I wanted to apply for Khyber Medical College in Peshawar, so along with Khyber, I was allowed to apply to all other govt medical colleges in NWFP (i.e. Ayub Medical, etc.). I am not sure how they determine what a foreign student's "domicile" is, it may be your choice. I chose NWFP because that's where most of my family is...but the smarter choice would be Punjab, since it has about 100000 times more medical colleges than any other province (Pakistani government has traditionally been a Punjab-friendly govt..go figure), so your options would be greatly increased. The process of sending the applications through the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC is also a long one, so you might want to get started on that early. Good luck!