How to get into FAST NUCES? A complete guide.


(Forgive me for lack of aesthetics, I'm new to this so I'm still trying to get used to it. I'll try my best to update the blog regularly and add new information. Ways to contact me are at the bottom)
 

So in this blog post, I will be explaining every process that you need to either understand or cover in order to secure your admission in FAST NUCES. But before that, we need to learn some basic things.

Introduction: 

Think of your admission to the university as like a pathway through a forest. You're starting at a place where the forest just begins and now you're about to enter the forest and get through it. The forest has different pathways, each leading to an end, some pathways lead to the same end. These ends are basically universities that you will be going into. To get into your desire end (university) you'd need to go through the forest and be on a specific pathway that leads to that specific end. 

Going through the forest entails doing a lot of research on the pathway you have chosen to commence your journey upon. You have to know what are the dangers of the forest, what will come in your way, what animal you might encounter etc - all comes under research and this is 1 of the 2 integral components for securing your admission in any university not just FAST. The 2nd is preparation on how to actually counter the dangers of the forest, how to survive at night, how to defeat an animal if you get into a fight etc etc. So the first component is research, second is preparation, both of these would be covered in this blog heavily. 

Research: 

Before actually doing anything, we have to do something to gather some information about the university and how the admissions are conducted so we can maximize our chances of admission. I won't be discussing the status of FAST NUCES as it's already well known that is the best, if not, then one of the best universities for computing sciences in Pakistan.

NOTE: My list for resources, by all means is not exhaustive. More resources will be added and you would need to look for them but I will try to update the blog frequently.

Resources for doing research: 
1- FAST's own website. https://www.nu.edu.pk
2- YouTube videos regarding admissions for FAST. (PakEduCareer, PakLearningSpot)
3- YouTube videos done my seniors on FAST's admissions. (Farhan Ali, ExpertGuy)
4- Facebook/Whatsapp groups, getting information from other students and seniors if you can find any. (There are too many groups to link so try joining for any university and then ask for FAST groups in that group, someone might DM you the link or paste it in the chat)

All of the information regarding merit criteria, eligibility, campuses, campus life, fee structure, financial aid, how to apply for admissions and everything else you need. Now I will be giving an example on how to gather information on all of these topics, using the 4 resources above for the year 2022. For the upcoming years maybe some changes are made so you need to look for them and act accordingly. 


How to apply for admissions: 

If you already have some experience in applying to universities then this should be a piece of cake as well but if not then no need to worry, there's a video tutorial which you can follow: 


Also please note that you can pay the challan online too. If you have any difficulties in applying, make sure to email the relevant campus.

Merit Criteria: 

The merit criteria is mentioned on FAST's own website so we only utilized resource no 1 using the website: https://www.nu.edu.pk/Admissions/EligibilityCriteria


The criteria for this year (2022) was different than previous years, this year the higher of the 2 percentages from Matric/O-Level and FSc/A-Level were counted as 50% and the rest 50% would be for the entry exam. Entry exam will be discussed later.

Eligibility Criteria:

Eligibility criteria is also mentioned on the website. And yes, admissions are cancelled if your result comes after admissions and you're no longer eligible. The fee will be refunded.


Fee structure:

It is again mentioned on this page: https://www.nu.edu.pk/Admissions/FeeStructure. The fee for first semester would be near 200,000 rs as there are fees you have to pay other than the tuition fee such as admission fee and security. Per semester, for computing sciences is almost 150,000 rs. 

Campuses and their lives:

There are 5 total campuses, each in Lahore, Islamabad, Chiniot-Faisalabad, Peshawar and Karachi. Since I'm from Islamabad, it is the best campus as it is the main one too. That doesn't mean others are inferior in some way, the quality of education and certification is the same for all. Islamabad as a city is like a hub for tech so I'd personally prefer that and if you live in Punjab, definitely target Islamabad. Do note that the merit of Lahore and Islamabad are the highest between all campuses. Rest of the pros and cons I can't describe here, you'd need to ask seniors living in each of the campuses and decide for yourself. 

Financial Aid:

FAST gives out loans to students who can't afford the fee and you have to pay back the debt when you're able to i.e; when you start earning where a small percent from that earning goes to FAST. Since FAST is a private organization, this is the option it adopts. For more information on this, after securing your admission, contact your respective campus to know more details regarding this.

Preparation: 

Now comes preparation, here we will be covering how to prepare for the tests that you'd need to clear in order to secure your admission. Again, before going into how to prepare for these, we need some information on these tests so we can tackle them properly.

As we saw in the merit criteria that FAST has 50% weightage which is quite serious so it seems like we would need to prepare for the tests. FAST accepts 2 types of entry test, 1st is NTS NAT and 2nd is FAST NU test.

The former one is conducted by Pakistan’s national testing service and the latter one is FAST's own computerized test which is conducted on the campus. We can apply through both tests but our focus should be on 1 to maximize the output and there is also a general preference given to one of these tests. The preference goes to FAST NU test, why? (below is are the reasons) 

1- I have given 4 NTS NAT and despite preparation, my marks never improved. I would like to blame this on my hard work but it's not the end of the story. NTS NAT is designed in a very weird way -  it is extremely easier on some parts and extremely difficult on others. It also has a wider scope than NU test which makes it more of like a fluke test than an actual entry test which is meant to judge your capabilities. 

2- The seats for students who apply/get admission through NTS NAT are less as compared to students who apply/get admission through NU test. I'm not sure how less but I'd assume it's a significant difference. 

3- The merit is quite high too. As you can see below the merit difference is on average 10-15 percent so to remain on the safe side, I wouldn't prefer this test.

 
Closing merits for Islamabad campus, 2022.


With these reasons, I'd personally prefer NU test as it's more balanced and easier to ace than this. Nonetheless, I'll still mention some resourceful channels using which you can prepare for NTS NAT.
1- Aspirants of future
2- NTS test master
3- GAT academy

You can also practice from this App, it's very helpful and has alot of practice MCQs:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nts.mcqs.test

Moving on to FAST's NU test, the criteria for the test is given below which is also on the website: https://www.nu.edu.pk/Admissions/TestPattren

Click the image to view it clearly ^

Since most students will be applying for computing sciences and engineering fields, I will be mainly covering that. For the test of computing sciences and engineering fields, we only have to focus on 1 subject and that is Maths. Especially the Maths of FSc since that's the syllabus. 

Every student has their own strategies for doing this step but the one I prefer which is the most easy, comprehensive and conceptual is to follow Sir Hashim Zia's ECAT playlist. 



Now let's talk about the playlist on ECAT. It's amazing, hands down. I am that student who always finds shortcuts and hate reading textbooks. I just can't understand textbooks and need easy and simplified lectures to do the job. Lectures which are detailed but easy to understand and cover all of the basics first so there's no confusion later on. So if you're someone like me, this playlist will do everything for you.

Pros:
1- Simplified concept delivery.
2- Short tricks, a lot of short tricks.
3- Every single concept of FSc Maths is covered here.
4- Lectures with proper visibility and audio.
5- Discussion of past paper questions after discussion of concepts.
6- Difficulty level of past paper questions is increased with the lecture.

Cons:
1- Almost 120 lectures which are quite long but some are very short too.
(This is the only con to the playlist, to me it's not because if you're aiming to get into your country's best university, you need to make a lot of sacrifices and do a lot of hard work. This playlist is not some kind of magic formula, it is just an easier pathway for you i.e; instead of paying very high fees to institutions, you can just watch this playlist for free at your own ease.)

How do we take the playlist?

Students might get tensed hearing there are so many lectures and it's practically impossible to cover all of these in a short time, usually few weeks. The trick is to watch the lectures on either 1.75x or 2x speed. With this you'd be able to cover a lot of lectures in a short time. I personally completed the whole playlist in 3 weeks or so before my FAST NU test.

With this trick, the only con I mentioned above gets eliminated and the playlist becomes an excellent resource for everyone.

Some other tips:
- Make your own notes of the lectures.
- To really make your notes last long for yourself, write your own explanations for the questions with your own logic.
- For practice, there is a Google Drive which is also compiled by Sir Hashim, containing all of the past paper questions of various universities. Not just this but the Drive also has practice questions for each chapter compiled by Sir and that should be more than enough for practice. No need to go for KIPS, STEP or Torcia but these are valid options too as practice is practice.


Maths aside, we're left with Basic Maths, IQ and English. Basic Maths is covered in Advanced Maths (Advanced Maths = FSc Maths) and you don't need to additionally prepare for it. If you want to, you can by using the NTS NAT resources above. For IQ, the Google drive of Sir Hashim is more than enough, just practice MCQs there and you'd be good to go - usually MCQs for IQ are very easy. For English, there's no need to prepare, why? 1- It has too less of weightage in the exam and 2- It's generally very easy and basic so as long as you can read this blog, you can also easily attempt the section for English. 

This is it from my end, see you in FAST NUCES.

Got any suggestions or anything you'd like me to add in this guide? 
My email is smelllikesmoke@gmail.com 
My Discord username is acolyte#3535 
My Discord server is https://discord.gg/DxWsY8sT2M







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