Top Medical Colleges in Bangladesh: What the Data Shows

Ulkaa publishes Ulkaa Edu Rank 2027 for universities, the edition published on 5 October 2026 with data to 2 October 2026. A separate table for medical colleges has not been published. It will follow, built on the published methodology, and this guide will be revised when it does.

Until then, ordering medical colleges from the numbers below would mean inventing a method on the spot, so we do not. A college with more listed seats or beds is larger. That is a different thing from being the right place for a particular student, and none of the figures in this guide should be read as a verdict on teaching.

Medical colleges rarely appear in global tables, because those tables mostly measure research output and reputation at universities. Three entries are worth knowing.

• QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026, Medicine, published 25 March 2026: University of Dhaka is in the 501-550 band, while BRAC University and Jahangirnagar University are each in 701-850.
• THE World University Rankings 2027, published 30 September 2026: Bangladesh Medical University (formerly Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, established 1965) is in the 1201-1400 band, listed 13th among the Bangladeshi entries in that edition.
• Ulkaa Edu Rank 2027: Bangladesh Medical University sits in the 51-75 band of the university table. Its position is computed from the published methodology 2027.1.

The government medical colleges that train most of the country's doctors do not have QS or THE rows of their own. Their absence says nothing about clinical training. It only reflects what those tables sample.

The dataset lists 112 medical colleges, compiled from the Wikipedia list of medical colleges in Bangladesh. Here is how they divide by location, with listed MBBS seats.

• Dhaka: 52 colleges (11 public, 41 private), 5,409 seats
• Chattogram: 19 colleges (9 public, 10 private), 1,745 seats
• Rajshahi: 11 colleges (6 public, 5 private), 1,250 seats
• Khulna: 10 colleges (6 public, 4 private), 855 seats
• Sylhet: 7 colleges (3 public, 4 private), 777 seats
• Rangpur: 6 colleges (4 public, 2 private), 800 seats
• Mymensingh: 4 colleges (3 public, 1 private), 515 seats
• Barishal: 3 colleges (2 public, 1 private), 375 seats

Dhaka division accounts for 52 of the 112 colleges and about 46 percent of listed seats. It also holds 41 of the 68 private colleges. Barishal division has three colleges in all, which matters if you want to study near home: the choice there is narrow, and the same is true of Mymensingh.

The oldest college in the list is Sir Salimullah Medical College, established 1875. Next come Dhaka Medical College (1946), Chittagong Medical College (1957), Rajshahi Medical College (1958), Mymensingh Medical College and Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College (both 1962), Sher-e-Bangla Medical College in Barishal (1968) and Rangpur Medical College (1970).

Only eight colleges date from before 1980, and all eight are public. The first private colleges in the list are Bangladesh Medical College (1986) and the Institute of Applied Health Sciences (1989). After that the numbers climb quickly:

• 1990s: 15 colleges
• 2000s: 30 colleges
• 2010s: 51 colleges
• 2020s so far: 6 colleges

So 87 of the 112 colleges opened in 2000 or later, and 57 in 2010 or later, among them 26 public and 31 private. The newest entries are Sunamganj Medical College (2021), Asgar Ali Medical College and Navy Medical College Chattogram (both 2024). Age tells you how long a college has been training doctors. It does not tell you how well.

The pattern differs by sector. Of the 44 public colleges, 26 opened in 2010 or later, and of the 68 private colleges, 31 did. Eleven private colleges date from before 2000, so most private colleges in the list opened in the last twenty-five years or so, and the public group mixes a few long-established colleges with many recent district-level ones. For a student, that means the same word, medical college, covers institutions with very different histories and teaching hospitals.

As listed in the dataset, public colleges offer 5,525 MBBS seats and private colleges 6,201, which is 11,726 together. Public colleges therefore average about 126 seats each and private colleges about 91. Individual colleges range from 50 to 225 seats.

Nine public colleges list 225 seats: Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Sylhet MAG Osmani, Sher-e-Bangla, Rangpur, Sir Salimullah and Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College. Several public colleges opened between 2014 and 2018 list 50, including Chandpur Medical College and Habiganj Medical College.

Public colleges are 44 of the 112 colleges, about 39 percent, yet they hold 5,525 of the 11,726 listed seats, about 47 percent. The reason is size: public colleges are larger on average, while private colleges are more numerous and smaller.

Seats per college also differ by place. Dividing each division's listed seats by its number of colleges gives roughly 104 in Dhaka, 92 in Chattogram, 114 in Rajshahi, 86 in Khulna, 111 in Sylhet, 133 in Rangpur, 129 in Mymensingh and 125 in Barishal. Divisions with fewer colleges, mostly public ones, therefore tend to have larger intakes per college. This is an average of listed numbers and hides wide variation inside each division.

Treat these totals with care. They come from one list, they reflect the seat count recorded there, and seat approvals change from session to session. The admission figures further down use the seat numbers reported by newspapers for each session, which do not match these totals exactly.

Hospital bed counts are stored for only 21 of the 112 colleges: 13 public and 8 private. For the other 91 the dataset has no figure, so no comparison is possible. Among the 21, the range is wide.

• Dhaka Medical College: 2,600 beds, 225 seats
• Chittagong Medical College: 2,200 beds, 225 seats
• Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College: 1,350 beds, 225 seats
• Cox's Bazar Medical College: 250 beds, 100 seats
• North East Medical College: 800 beds, 125 seats
• Anwer Khan Modern Medical College: 750 beds, 147 seats
• Ibn Sina Medical College: 250 beds, 60 seats

A bed count is a capacity figure. It does not say how many patients a student actually sees or how bedside teaching is organised, so ask each college directly rather than dividing beds by seats and calling the result a score.

Most applicants to government medical colleges sit one national medical admission test. The figures below come from news reports, with the session named, and the seat counts are those reported for government seats in each session.

• 2022-23: over 138,000 applicants for 4,350 government seats, about 31.7 per seat. The applicant figure was stated for all colleges, so this ratio is approximate.
• 2023-24: 104,044 applicants for 5,380 seats, about 19.3 per seat.
• 2024-25: 135,261 applications for 5,380 seats, about 25.1 per seat.
• 2025-26: 122,632 applicants for 5,645 seats (5,100 MBBS and 545 BDS), about 21.7 per seat.

For 2025-26, one report also counted private seats, bringing the total to 13,051 (7,406 of them private). Against that larger number the ratio falls to about 9.4 applicants per seat. The two views answer different questions: the first describes how hard it is to win a government seat, the second how many places exist in all. Neither describes any one college, because applicants choose by merit position and preference. The sources are Daily Campus, Prothom Alo and Dhaka Times 24.

The data in this guide cannot replace checking the college itself. Before you rank your own choices, look at the following.

• BMDC recognition. Confirm that the college and its MBBS programme are recognised by the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council, since your registration to practise depends on it. Use the council's own records, not a third-party list.
• Hospital capacity. Ask for the current number of beds in the attached teaching hospital, not a figure from a brochure or an old list.
• Clinical exposure. Ask which wards and outpatient departments students rotate through, and in which years.
• Affiliated university. The dataset records the affiliated university: 58 colleges with University of Dhaka, 16 with Chittagong Medical University, 15 with Rajshahi Medical University, 9 with Khulna Medical University, 7 with Sylhet Medical University and 7 with Bangladesh University of Professionals. Your examinations and degree come from that university.
• Approved seats for your session. Read the official admission circular for the year you apply, since seat numbers change.
• Location. A college in another division means years away from home, so weigh that against a closer option.

When the Ulkaa medical ranking is published, it will appear alongside these checks and not in place of them.