A close friend of mine studies at CMC Ludhiana and gave me insight into the actual scenario of academics there. 

• The academic environment may not be the best but it certainly is decent. You will have professors poking you to study hard, guide you, and keep track of your progress.
•  The institute has a very poor infrastructure that hinders the classroom experience to a certain extent.
• The institute has a decent number of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and organizes a musical theatre every year.
• CMC Ludhiana fees are extremely high around INR 6.6 for the first year which keeps increasing. It may not seem worth it. 
• The hostel facilities are also average although better than many government colleges. 

Overall, if your only goal is to study and become a good doctor, CMC Ludhiana is a decent choice for sure but if you also want a dynamic college life then I will suggest considering other options.

CMC is a minority-based institution where the majority of seats are reserved. General Category Students in the Open quota, hardly are allotted 4 seats so the cutoff is very unpredictable and changes every year depending on the level of difficulty of the exam and other factors. 

That said, it’s difficult to determine the minimum marks required to get admission to CMC Ludhiana without knowing your category and the year you will be attempting. The cutoff for the previous year for various categories are listed below:

To give a rough estimate, in a fairly easy paper, you need 600+ and in a difficult one, you might need 560+ that is if you want a general category seat (Open quota) in CMC for MBBS.

I have many friends in CMC Ludhiana and everyone started a number of reasons why one should prefer the college for an MBBS. 

The most common answer was that the teachers and professors stay on campus and don’t practice privately. This translates to better attention to students and round-the-clock availability to students, residents, and patients. They focus entirely on teaching the students and working at CMC Ludhiana. Moreover, they aren’t money-driven and work for larger goals. It’s true that CMC Ludhiana has slowly lost its image but still many choose this college mainly because they are impressed by the dedication level of the faculty. 

Some systems are still in place that have been handed down from the days of missionaries over generations and prove to be very beneficial in training good doctors.

The first year at CMC Ludhiana has only 3 subjects namely Anatomy, Physiology, and Biochemistry. Here are a few books recommended by my friend for each of these subjects 

Anatomy

• Vishram Singh for General and Regional Anatomy 
• Langman or Inderbir Singh for Embryology 
• Inderbir Singh for neuroanatomy
• Defoire’s for Histology
• Additionally considering going through Student Grays for regional as well as Snells for neuroanatomy

Physiology

• Guyton
• Ak Jain
• Linda Constanzo

Biochemistry

• Lippincott 
• Satyanarayan
• The physiology department provides their own book for practicals.

Additionally, you can refer to the notes you made while attending lectures.