The State University of Medical and Applied Sciences runs its Post UTME and Direct Entry screening once a year, and the whole thing is decided in a window of about six weeks. Cut-off is 150. The form costs N2,000, non-refundable. There are 26 programmes across six faculties, and SUMAS has to be your first choice on JAMB CAPS before you can apply at all.
This page covers what student asks for about SUMAS Post UTME form, which courses you can realistically target, how the application works, and the specific mistakes that get candidates thrown out. Requirements have held steady across cycles, so what follows is what to prepare for.
When SUMAS Post UTME opens
Expect the next window between June and August 2027. Start watching in early June.
Here is why that is a range and not a date. The 2025/2026 cycle ran 21 July to 30 August. The following year it opened 22 June and closed 31 July, which means the whole window shifted almost a full month earlier between one cycle and the next, so any page quoting you a firm 2027 opening date today is guessing rather than reporting.
What the two cycles share is shape. Roughly six weeks. Opening in the back half of June or July, closing about five weeks later.
The trigger is the JAMB policy meeting. It sets national cut-off marks and effectively starts Post UTME season across Nigerian universities, and school announcements follow within a few weeks of it, which is why watching JAMB tells you when to start checking sumas.edu.ng.
About SUMAS
The university sits at Igbo-Eno in Enugu State, along the Ninth Mile to Obollo Afor road. It is Enugu State owned and specialised, and that word specialised is the thing to understand about its admissions.
This is not a general university with a medical faculty bolted on. Medicine and applied sciences are the entire institution, which is why the entry requirements run tighter than you would meet at a conventional state university offering some of the same courses. Screening notices come from the Office of the Registrar, currently Dr. A.U. Onah.
SUMAS cut-off mark
The cut-off is 150, and it has held at that figure across the last two cycles.
That is the floor for eligibility and nothing else. Departmental competition decides who actually gets admitted, and at a specialised medical university the gap between those two numbers is wide enough to swallow most applicants. Medicine and Surgery, Pharmacy and Nursing are heavily oversubscribed every single year, and realistic candidates for those three are scoring well above 150. Applied Microbiology and Brewing or Industrial Physics tell a different story entirely.
SUMAS does not publish departmental cut-offs. Any site quoting you specific figures per course has invented them.
Who can apply
Six conditions from the official notice.
Age. At least 16 years old by 30 September of the admission year.
UTME score. 150 or above in that year’s JAMB UTME.
First choice. SUMAS must sit in your first choice slot on JAMB CAPS. Candidates who chose elsewhere are required to change their first choice to SUMAS before applying, and our guide on when to do your change of institution covers the timing, which matters because the change has to reflect on JAMB’s end before the SUMAS portal will recognise you.
O’Level. At least five SSCE credit passes from WAEC, NECO or NABTEB, to include English Language, Mathematics and Physics, plus two other subjects relevant to your programme. Medicine and Surgery requires these in a single sitting. Other programmes allow not more than two.
That Physics requirement catches people out, so check it against your own results before assuming you qualify. The notice lists it alongside English and Mathematics rather than among the programme-specific subjects. Confirm your exact combination in the JAMB brochure for your course, since the brochure is what admissions officers work from.
Direct Entry for Medicine and Surgery. A minimum of second class upper division, a 2:1, in a first degree, or upper credit in HND in a related programme from a recognised institution. Your awarding institution must clear you on the JAMB e-facility.
Direct Entry for other programmes. Second class lower division or its equivalent in OND, HND or a first degree, again cleared on the e-facility. If you are working towards a Direct Entry qualification rather than holding one, IJMB at FUD is one route into 200 level without sitting JAMB again.
Fee. N2,000, non-refundable.
Courses at SUMAS
Twenty-six programmes across six faculties.
Faculty of Clinical Medicine Medicine and Surgery
Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences Human Anatomy, Human Physiology
Faculty of Allied Health Sciences Doctor of Physiotherapy, Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing Science, Human Nutrition and Dietetics, Radiography and Radiation Science, Public Health, Health Care Administration and Hospital Management
Faculty of Pharmacy Doctor of Pharmacy
Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Architecture, Quantity Surveying
Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences Applied Microbiology and Brewing, Biochemistry, Computer Science, Genetics and Biotechnology, Information and Communication Technology, Pure and Industrial Chemistry, Industrial Physics
Notice what that list tells you. SUMAS runs Engineering, Computer Science and ICT alongside its medical programmes, which surprises students who assume a medical university only takes medical candidates.
Choosing a course you can actually get
Worth thinking about before you set your heart on one programme.
At a conventional state university, a weak Medicine application often gets redirected into a related science course by the admissions process. SUMAS has fewer places to redirect you into, because the institution is built around a narrower set of programmes.
That cuts both ways. Competition for Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing is fierce, since every strong medical candidate in the region is chasing the same handful of slots. The Engineering and Natural Sciences faculties attract a much thinner field, because students who want Computer Science or Civil Engineering usually apply to a general university without ever thinking of a medical school.
Say your score lands somewhere between 150 and 180 and you want SUMAS specifically. Biomedical Engineering, Genetics and Biotechnology or ICT deserve serious thought, because they put you inside the institution on a health-adjacent degree at a cut-off nobody is fighting over. If the problem is your course rather than your school, change of course is the lever, and it is cheaper than the alternative of losing a year.
How to apply
Applications run at www.sumas.edu.ng/apply. Scroll down, click Apply, or use Start Application Now in the navigation menu. From there you create an account with a valid email address and phone number, verify the email, log in, then fill the form and upload every required document in the format the portal specifies.
Then payment. Use your JAMB or Direct Entry registration number as the payment narration. SUMAS states this twice, once in the numbered steps and again in a footer across the bottom of the notice, which tells you precisely how often it goes wrong. A payment sitting in the university account under somebody’s personal name rather than a registration number is hard to match back to an application, and doing that matching is your problem rather than theirs.
Review, submit, print your acknowledgement slip. Keep it with the receipt.
Four rules that disqualify people
The notice carries four warnings. Each one has ended somebody’s application.
Your CAPS details and portal details must match. JAMB registration number, date of birth, state of origin. A mismatch creates manual work for an admissions officer, and during a busy cycle those files get set aside.
Your programme choice must be the same in both places. SUMAS states that only candidates whose programme of choice on JAMB CAPS matches their Post UTME application will be considered. Choosing Nursing on CAPS and Public Health on the portal is enough to lose the application on its own.
Your O’Level must be uploaded to JAMB CAPS. The notice is blunt. Candidates who fail to do so will not be considered for admission. Our guide to uploading results and checking status on JAMB CAPS walks through the screens.
Submit one application only. No candidate should submit more than one, and SUMAS says only those who successfully submit a single application are considered. A duplicate is a real risk rather than a second chance.
What to get sorted before the window opens
Four things, and all of them are easier now than in the six weeks when the portal is live.
Get your O’Level onto JAMB CAPS the moment you have results. SUMAS states outright that candidates who fail to do this are not considered, which makes it the most avoidable way to lose an application at this university. An hour online, or a walk into any JAMB accredited CBT centre, and it is done.
Check the Physics credit. If you are targeting SUMAS without Physics at credit level, you need to sit it, and that decision has to be made a full exam cycle ahead.
Then the single sitting rule, which only bites if Medicine and Surgery is the target. Credits spread across two sittings are perfectly fine everywhere else at SUMAS. For Medicine they are not, and no amount of explaining your circumstances at the admissions office will change that.
Last one is cheap. Put SUMAS as your first choice at JAMB registration instead of paying for a change of institution afterwards. It saves the fee and removes a step that has to fully complete on JAMB’s end before the portal will recognise you.
Documents to have ready
The portal asks you to upload everything in a specified format, and the six weeks the window is open is a bad time to discover your scanner does not work.
Have scanned, before the window opens: your O’Level result or results, your JAMB result slip, your birth certificate or declaration of age, and a recent passport photograph. Direct Entry candidates add their ND, HND, degree certificate or statement of result.
Scan properly. Good light, flat surface, straight on, saved as a clear PDF or JPG inside whatever size limit the portal sets. A dark phone photograph taken at an angle is one of the most common reasons an upload gets rejected, and rejections cost you days you may not have.
Name the files sensibly too. Something an admissions officer can identify without opening it beats IMG_20260622_004518.
After you apply
SUMAS has not published a screening or admission timetable, which is normal for this university. The previous cycle’s notice said a screening date would be announced separately.
Keep the email address and phone number on your application active, because the notice specifically says communication goes there. Watch sumas.edu.ng for a screening announcement.
And check JAMB CAPS weekly. Admission at Nigerian universities is made through CAPS and an offer has to be actively accepted there. It does not sit waiting for you indefinitely. An unaccepted offer can be withdrawn and passed to the next candidate, and students lose places this way every year purely by not logging in.
Other Post UTME forms worth knowing
Build a shortlist. Betting a whole admission year on one specialised university is how students end up sitting at home.
Sokoto State University and JOSTUM both sit at 150 with the same N2,000 fee, so a score that clears SUMAS clears them. FULAFIA is the one to look at if Medicine is the goal and you want a backup, since it sets MBBS at 230 against a general cut-off of 170. Harder, but real.
For health sciences without committing six years, the NASCOHST Pharmacy Technician programme takes a different entry route entirely.
Questions people ask
What is the SUMAS cut-off mark? 150. Departmental cut-offs are not published.
How much is the SUMAS Post UTME form? N2,000, non-refundable.
When does SUMAS Post UTME open? SUMAS announces it each year. Based on the last two cycles, expect a window between June and August, and start checking in early June.
Can I apply if SUMAS was not my first choice? Yes, but you must change your first choice to SUMAS on JAMB CAPS before applying.
Does SUMAS accept two sittings? For most programmes, yes. Medicine and Surgery requires a single sitting.
Does SUMAS write a Post UTME exam? The notice describes a screening exercise without publishing an examination date, and the previous cycle indicated the date would be announced separately. Watch the university site rather than assuming either way.
What Direct Entry qualification do I need for Medicine? A 2:1 in a first degree or upper credit in HND in a related programme, cleared by your awarding institution on the JAMB e-facility.
How old do I need to be? At least 16 by 30 September of the admission year.
Where this information comes from
This page is drawn from the official Post UTME and Direct Entry screening notice issued by the SUMAS Office of the Registrar, cross-checked against the previous cycle’s announcement and against JAMB CAPS requirements.
Where SUMAS has not published something, this page says so. That applies to departmental cut-off marks, the screening date, the admission list timetable and the opening date for the next cycle. Pages quoting firm figures on any of those are not working from a SUMAS source.
Bookmark this page. It is updated as soon as SUMAS opens the next window, and the fastest thing you can do today is check whether your O’Level is actually showing on JAMB CAPS.
I am Jude Chinecherem, a final-year MBBS student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I know what it feels like to want an education your family cannot afford. When my parents could not pay for my schooling, I had to learn how to find scholarships and work the system out on my own, with nobody to guide me. I came out the other side, and now I share everything I learned so the next student does not have to figure it out alone. This is the advice I wish someone had given me back then.
