Paying Cadet Form and Army Quota in NUST

Update: According to a new rule released by GHQ in the month of Jan, 2020. Induction of PC students in the army has been stopped. The 2017 batch of PC students which will graduate in 2021 is the last batch who will be given jobs in the army as captains.  In the future (unless the policy is changed) any student who will be studying as PC will have the degree after the program has ended and will not be required to work in the army!

General Information:
Paying Cadet Form or PC form is a GHQ's initiative to help the children of army personnel. About 200 seats are reserved in NUST for these students. Those students who get selected have their fees reduced compared to civilian students and they also have to sign a bond with GHQ. The bond keeps changing, but as of now it is that all the selected individuals will have to serve in the Pakistan Army for at least 3 years as a Captain. If they wish to leave the army after this period they can willingly do so, similarly if they want to keep serving in the Pakistan Army, they can do that too.

I am studying Software Engineering at Military College of Signals, NUST as a paying cadet. I joined MCS on 23/08/2017. In this article, I will be sharing with you all the information on how I got into NUST as a paying cadet and who are eligible for paying cadet seats and how you can apply for it.

Who is eligible?
If your father or mother is serving in the army or is retired from the army, then you are eligible for paying cadet seats. Secondly, you must not be selected in NUST on open merit otherwise you will become ineligible for paying cadets seat. I got 125 marks in NUST entry test and I was not selected on open merit. That's why I got eligible for paying cadet seat. Most number of seats are reserved for Civil Engineering department, then comes mechanical, software and telecom. If you are selected as a paying cadet, you will not study in the main campus of NUST located in H-12, Islamabad. You will study in the sub branches of NUST which are affiliated with the Pakistan Army. These are AMC, PNEC, EME, MCS and CAE. MCS offers courses in software engineering and telecom engineering. They will also introduce IS or internet security in the coming years. EME offers courses such as mechanical, mechatronics, computer engineering and electrical engineering. And CAE offers courses in Avionics, Aerospace, IT and Networking, Humanities and Sciences and Industrial. PNEC offers applied sciences, industrial, engineering sciences and management information systems. AMC stands for Army Medical College. If you are selected as a paying cadet, you will most likely be sent to one of these colleges.

How to Apply?
In order to apply, you have to fill out a paying cadet form, which you can get online or directly from GHQ. I will leave a link to old paying cadet form here so you can get more information from it.
 Open it from here: Old Paying Cadet Form
Lets move on. After you have filled the form you have to mail it to GHQ by post and wait for the call. For more information on paying cadets form, I recommend that you keep in touch with their Facebook page as well. I will leave a link to them here. Paying Cadet Facebook Page.
They release the new paying cadet forms somewhere after the second entry test in April or May. But the dates keep changing so please keep in touch with their Facebook page to get the latest updates.

If you want to pursue your career in the medical field, then AMC is undoubtedly best for you. In the engineering field, mechanical and electrical engineering have the highest preferences. In that case, EME is without doubt the best college among all other engineering colleges. I chose software engineering because of my interest in business and entrepreneurship.

That's it. If you want more information on Paying Cadets topic, you can contact me using the contact us page of this website or on instagram at @_awaisnoor1 and I will try to respond as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!!!