Why are the cut-off scores for Group C so incredibly high?

Candidates taking the 2024 high school graduation exam. This year, the cut-off scores for Group C subjects at many universities have skyrocketed - Photo: TT

Literature, History, and Geography – even with 9.5 points each, many still failed to get into any major at universities. The soaring scores in the social science subjects in this year's high school graduation exam have pushed the traditional cut-off scores for many universities to unbelievably high levels.

Literature teacher training program sets record for admission score.

In many fields, candidates who scored 9.6 points in each subject still failed to get into their registered program. This is most evident in the teacher training sector. The literature, history, and geography teacher training programs broke all previous cut-off score records of the universities.

In previous years, the cut-off scores for teacher training programs in literature, history, and geography were higher than those for natural science teacher training programs, but the difference wasn't too significant, especially for mathematics teacher training. However, this gap has widened this year.

	Highest admission scores for some universities in 2024
Literature Education, Hanoi University of Education	29.3
Primary Education (Vietnam National University, Hanoi)	28.89
Literature Department, Hanoi Pedagogical University 2	28.83
Literature Teacher Training, Hong Duc University	28.83
History Education Department, Vinh University	28.71
Literature Education Department, Hung Vuong University	28.44
History Education Department, Can Tho University	28.43
History Education (Hue University)	28.3
History Education (University of Da Nang)	28.13
An Giang University Geography Education	27.91
Faculty of Literature Education, Da Lat University	27.75
Literature and Language Pedagogy, Tay Nguyen University	27.58
History Education Department, Quy Nhon University	27.45

For example, at Hanoi Pedagogical University, the cutoff scores for the Literature and History pedagogy majors reached 29.3. This is equivalent to candidates needing to achieve 9.767 points to be admitted. This is the highest cutoff score among universities that have announced their cutoff scores as of the morning of August 18th.

Not to mention that for the history education major, candidates needed to achieve a score of 19.3 and list it as their first choice to be admitted. The geography education major had a lower cutoff score, but it still reached 29.05. The history-geography education major also had a cutoff score of 28.83.

Meanwhile, the cutoff score for the mathematics teacher training major was only 27.47. The cutoff scores for physics, chemistry, and biology teacher training majors ranged from over 26 to over 27 points. Even "minor" teacher training majors like civics education had higher cutoff scores than these majors.

In fact, the cutoff scores for these teacher training programs at many universities are even 2 to 2.5 points higher than those for mathematics teacher training. The difference is even greater for chemistry, physics, and biology teacher training programs.

This is also the case at teacher training colleges or multidisciplinary universities that offer teacher training programs. No other major has a higher admission score than teacher training. Nor does any teacher training major have a higher admission score than the literature-history-geography teacher training group.

Carp transforms into a dragon.

The cut-off scores for the Literature-History-Geography combination have increased this year across almost all schools. This is not unexpected, given the increased number of candidates taking the social science exam and the significantly higher scores compared to 2023.

This year, the number of candidates in Group C increased by approximately 20,000 compared to 2023. The average score for the three subjects in 2023 was 18.97 points, which increased by 1.98 points to 20.95 points in 2024.

If we consider the high and excellent scores, the number of candidates increases even more. At the 24-point level, there were 33,459 candidates in 2023, and this number doubled in 2024.

Meanwhile, the number of candidates achieving excellent scores has increased dramatically. At the 27-point level, there were 6,041 candidates in 2023, while in 2024 this number increased fourfold. The number of candidates scoring 28 points increased sixfold compared to 2023, and those scoring 29 points increased more than tenfold. The number of candidates scoring between 29 and 30 points in 2024 increased more than 54 times compared to 2023.

That's why the cut-off scores for many majors and universities that include literature, history, and geography have skyrocketed. Many schools that had average cut-off scores last year are now failing to get into any major this year, even with 9 points per subject.

For example, at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Culture, the cut-off scores for all majors have increased, with the highest reaching 8.5 points.

Many candidates said they applied to the Ho Chi Minh City University of Culture with the goal of avoiding failure, but ultimately... they did fail because the cutoff score increased so much compared to 2023.

	2023 Admission Scores	2024 Admission Scores
Information Science	16	24
Museum studies	15	23.5
Tourism	23.75	26.75
Travel management	24	27
Travel guide	23.5	26.5
Publishing business	21	25.3
Management of socio-cultural activities	22	25.85
Cultural heritage management	17.75	25.25
Organizing art programs	17	22.5
Event organization	24	27.25
Vietnamese culture	21.5	25.5
Cultural industry	22	26.3
Cultural communication	24.25	27.85
Ethnic minority culture	15	22

Similarly, many majors that had cutoff scores of 15 or 16 last year have seen their scores jump to 25 this year. For example, the Vietnamese Studies major at Hanoi Pedagogical University, which had a cutoff score of 16.4 last year, has "transformed" this year with a cutoff score of up to 25.07.

At Hanoi University of Culture, this year 6 out of 18 majors have cut-off scores for Block C ranging from 23.85 to under 26.98 points. The remaining 12 majors had cut-off scores above 27.9 points per subject, yet still failed to get admitted. The highest cut-off score reached 28.9 points. Thus, this year's cut-off scores have increased significantly compared to last year.

In 2023, none of the departments at this university had a cutoff score of 27 points or higher in the humanities/social sciences (Block C).

Although it doesn't offer a Literature-History-Geography program, the Public Relations major at the National Economics University accepts two subject combinations: Literature-History and Literature-Geography with Mathematics. This year, the Public Relations major has the highest admission score at the university, at 28.18, despite lagging behind dozens of other majors in 2023.

The cutoff scores for Group C subjects at many major universities, such as the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City), and the Academy of Journalism and Communication, are still at 9.5 points per subject, but students still fail to get in.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/diem-chuan-khoi-c-cao-khong-tuong-vi-sao-20240818103616184.htm