IBCC Equivalence for Pakistan Medical Colleges

Hello Everyone I am new to this forum, I am currently pondering over whether
I should pursue medicine in pakistan. I currently reside in Canada and follow the Canadian education system. Anyways I am doing my research on which medical school to apply too. Apparently I came up with doing medical in pakistan after my grade 12 exams which ended in June. I plan on going to Dow Medical College. I am trying to contact DOW from the number on their website for the past few days and I even emailed them and no reply. I was just wondering if any of you guys know when are admissions for DOW starting and what are deadlines for application for canadian students. Also IBCC is a pain in the neck, I call the office, this stupid guy picks up and I ask him question and to every question his reply is check our website, I told him that I have checked the website and the info i want is not on there. I want to get my equivalency certificate made and my highschool hasnt issued a diploma yet. i have my graduation and diploma ceremony in September 2006. I do have transcripts available. Thanks to your forum, I came to know alot about med skool application process in Pakistan. The IBCC website says it takes 3-10 days to process application and thats a lie as ppl in the forum claim it took 4-5 months for their application processing.Is there some way to make things go faster. I also asked the guy about provisional certificates and he said they dont grant provisional certificates any more. I am getting very frustrated and dissapointed in the entire application process because I can't get anywhere a) IBCC wont talk properly and give me the info I ask them and b) no one at DOW would pick up the phone and give me info. I have already made a backup plan on going to University of Toronto if I dont get into Med School in Pak. I have good 90% marks but I believe time is against me rite now . IS there any help or any pathway I can take? I dont want to waste 1 yr by studying in Canada and then going to Pakistan, I prefer to start after grade 12 . Thanks a bunch for your input and any replies.

First of all, Would like to tell I saw the Sine-CharSoBeese that my nickname stands for "Make 7-Up Yours" hah alright w/that out of the way lets proceed to another silly canadian question which sounds more like a question from a Pakistani who moved to Canada when they were 7.

If you have gone through this website, like you said you have, it doesnt show from your post =). Lets break it down. again.. Your pondering whether or not to attend medical school in Pakistan. Well ponder-not my friend from the punt of all south park jokes, medical school in pakistan is not like portrayed in india through cheap bollywood films. There will be no dancing/singing (ok some students in the back benches do) <-- yes govt schools dont have chairs you sit in benches but cheek to but cheek. Girls sit on one side of the room, guys on the other half. I find that sitting up 70% of the way and towards the middle makes for the best view point of da ladeez.

I'm glad that since you reside in Canada you follow the Canadian Education System, would suck if you followed the Pakistani one!!! First of All, I'm assuming your going to apply as a foreigner, well forget about specifics for now! You cant apply directly to dow, you apply to the Economic Affairs Division in Islamabad to all the GOVERNMENT medical schools in the country listing your first, second, third preferences etc.

Anyway, as far as contacting dow or any govt medical school for that matter, no reason as I specified above. Actually, I go to a govt med school in Pakistan and I would never call them for anything. They dont even help you when your physically there in their face, so I assume a phone call from Canada isnt gonna make a difference. And email? Website? Those are just formalities, no one checks the emails or updates the website, they just copy and paste their website stuff from other websites.

As far as the IBCC thing is concerned, you will HAVE to have your Diploma!!! Forget bothering w/it if you dont have it. Its a pain in the ass even if you have straight A's and all the documents let alone missing MAJOR ones. Dont even phone them either as their not getting paid anymore to talk to you on the phone than they are for what their doing there. You gotta remember, lots of Pakistan and Foreigners all over the world use their services, their 2 busy for anyone. And it doesnt take months. If you do everything PROPERLY, you can apply for urgent and get it within a week but that usually never happens cuz you will make a mistake or they will make a mistake for you and so Id say its fair to say it will take the average man/woman about a month to get it.

As for what to do in the mean time for a year or so? I say get into a university and take a light load, the exposure will help you broaden yourself. But w/marks like that, admission or not doesnt seem to be the issue but whether or not you can get admitted now as the deadline for foreign student applications is either end of august or october, im not sure its different every year!

Okay i have question about the IBCC Equivlance for Pakistan Medical Colleges, so instead of opening a new therad i am going to post in here. My question is reagarding the IB diplome. Does the IB diplome help in getting a better score on the equivalence conversion? And by how much? How do they convert it into merit points and how much will it help? So the simple question is what does IBCC think about the IB (classes, tests, and the diploma)

QnnaQ, welcome to Med Studentz!

This is a really good question -- but one I don't have a 100% definitive answer to. IBCC does give some credit for AP test scores but the actual point system has never been published by their office.

They may give the same sort of extra points for the IB program's tests but your best bet would be to talk to IBCC directly.

I think if you have AP classes, when they convert they just take off less %age thats about it, you have to remind them to do it too.

Salam all!

My cousin just gave me some info. from the IBCC ppl after bugging them a whole lot. He said that if you take AP classes and the AP test, they reduce your score in that particular subject by 10% as opposed to 20%. Now in my opinion, that only works to your advantage if you do well in the AP class and do well on the AP test. Otherwise you're better off taking the college prep classes and getting the 20% taken off. You gotta see how it'll work best for you.

As for IB, I'm guessing it's the same deal as the AP. I don't have any specific information on it, but I do know that the IBCC recognizes the IB program/tests/diploma/etc.

Hope that helps!

Well thats helpfull but i need to know how much it helps because i have a choice to do IB or not. It can be helpfull and hurtfull as well depending on what IBCC gives for it. As u said in bold same goes for IB, so i need to decide??? Any suggestions

Salam everyone!

QnnaQ, the reason I say "it depends" is because it depends on what you're aiming for. My opinion is this, if you can get an A in the IB class and a 6 or 7 on the IB test for that particular subject, go for it. You'll get less cut off your IBCC marks. If you think you'll get a B and less than a 6 on the test, it's very likely that you'd get the same IBCC marks for that subject had you taken a basic class but gotten an A in it, and you would have done less work ( a lot less ).

Salam everyone!

I was just wondering, what are some of the highest marks you guys know of anyone who's attended a U.S. school? I know 1100 is the max, but that's pretty much impossible to reach. I thought it would be good to know what some realistic "high marks" are.

You've got a high score if you're around 900 (Need a lot of AP classes to reach that!)

Salam all!

Dang, that's a lot higher than I expected. That's pretty amazing considering the crazy deductions the IBCC folks make. Thx for the measure tho!