The results are in for Makerere University’s Mature Age Entry Scheme examinations, held on December 13, 2025. The Academic Registrar released the composite results on April 22, 2026 — and buried inside 28 pages of numbers is a story about ambition, brutal competition, and the kind of odds that would make most people quit before they even sat the exam.
They didn’t quit. And some of the numbers they produced are remarkable.
The Mature Age Entry Scheme is Makerere’s pathway for people who didn’t come through the conventional A-Level route but want a shot at a degree at Uganda’s top university. You sit an aptitude exam, and if you score 50% or above, your result gets combined with a programme-specific paper to generate a composite score. That composite is what the Admissions Committee uses to decide who gets in.
It sounds straightforward. The competition is anything but.
47 people. One pharmacy slot.
The single government-sponsored slot in the Bachelor of Pharmacy programme attracted 47 applicants — the highest applicant-to-slot ratio for any single government slot in the entire document. The person who topped that list scored a final composite of 83.6%. Second place got 83.2%. The difference between getting in and going home was less than half a percentage point.
The Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery government programme drew 162 applicants for just 4 slots — a ratio of more than 40 applicants per slot. The top scorer among all of them finished at 77.2%. Of the 162 who sat, at least 10 didn’t even show up for the exam, having registered and then gone silent on the day.
The government Bachelor of Laws programme had 30 applicants competing for 2 seats. The top scorer hit 79.2%. Only the top 13 managed to produce a composite final mark — meaning more than half the field fell below the competitive threshold.
Among all competitive programmes with final composite marks visible in the results, the Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering government programme produced the standout score. Candidate 2026/MAK/409 scored 87.2% — the highest final mark across the engineering and sciences section of the entire results sheet. Second place in that same programme got 86.8%. They were competing for 2 government slots from a field of 24 applicants.
Dental Surgery: 27 applicants. 1 government slot.
One of the most lopsided programmes in the document. The top scorer finished at 74.4%. Twenty-six other people went home.
Government Nursing is essentially an all-female competition. Of the 25 applicants listed for the single government nursing slot, the overwhelming majority are female — and all 10 candidates who produced a final composite score are women. The top scorer reached 72.6%.
Government Mechanical Engineering is the opposite. Fifteen applicants. Zero women listed in the visible results — every entry in that programme shows “M” in the gender column.
Civil Engineering (government) had 29 applicants and returned only two female names visible across the full list. Electrical Engineering’s 24-person government field had just one female candidate.
Medicine tells a more mixed story. The 162-applicant government MBChB list includes women scattered throughout — though men dominate the upper rankings. The private day MBChB list of 65 applicants includes notably more female entries in the middle and lower bands.
Across multiple programmes, there are entries marked “Did not turn up for the Examination.” It’s a small detail that carries weight. People who registered, presumably prepared, and then didn’t walk through the door on December 13. Medicine government had at least 9 such entries. Dental Surgery had 2. Pharmacy government had 2. It’s a reminder that even the act of sitting this exam takes something — and not everyone made it that far.
Candidates who passed have been recommended by the Pre-Entry and Mature Age Committee to the University’s Admissions Committee for consideration. That’s the next gate. Passing the exam doesn’t guarantee admission — it earns you a place in the room where the final decisions get made.
For the person who scored 83.6% in Pharmacy and is now waiting to hear whether that was enough: you already did something most people never attempt.
