From July 29th, candidates began paying the application fee at 15,000 VND per nguyện vọng (preference) instead of the previously announced 20,000 VND by the Ministry of Education and Training. This new fee, agreed upon by the technical infrastructure and payment service providers, somewhat facilitates the process for candidates. However, with 7.6 million preferences, the total fee still exceeds 110 billion VND – a significant amount, raising concerns about the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the admissions process.
In reality, this year's application process was not easy, especially for candidates with average to above-average scores. While online registration has been completed, parents and students on online forums remain anxious. Those with 28 points or more can feel somewhat reassured, but for the remaining candidates, especially those applying to top-tier and mid-tier universities, the feeling of being "on pins and needles" is real. This is because, for the first time this year, the Ministry of Education and Training mandated that universities convert scores from various admission methods to a unified scale. However, each university uses a different conversion method, leading to a chaotic mix of criteria and scoring methods – confusing candidates and bewildering parents.
Many parents commented that registering their children for university admissions this year felt like a "maze." Unsure and uncertain about the conversion methods used by universities, candidates felt compelled to apply to many different options to increase their chances of admission. Candidates with average or above-average scores found it difficult to base their choices on last year's cutoff scores, as last year's scores were calculated differently and were not suitable for comparison. Teacher Vu Khac Ngoc ( Hanoi ), one of the teachers whose online admissions advice is highly sought after by parents and candidates, also advised students that, given the difficulty in predicting cutoff scores this year, they should apply to more options to increase their chances and ensure admission. "From score distributions and conversions to percentiles and supplementary criteria… it’s truly confusing," many parents remarked.
This confusion can be partly seen in the numbers: a total of approximately 7.6 million applications were submitted this year, averaging nearly 9 applications per candidate. While the Ministry of Education and Training did not release this data for 2024, the average number of applications in 2023 was just over 3. This overwhelming number of applications could also pose difficulties for the filtering process this year.
Another notable point in this year's admissions process is the complete abolition of early admissions. All admission methods, whether based on high school graduation exam results, academic transcripts, aptitude tests, or international certificates, will be conducted in a single round. With this new regulation, the Ministry of Education and Training hopes to reduce the time and cost pressure on candidates and their families, ensuring fairness and transparency in accessing university opportunities. The admissions system will automatically determine which subject combination or admission method yields the highest score for each candidate. Therefore, students do not need to worry about choosing the wrong combination or missing opportunities due to technical errors during registration.
However, according to many experts, transferring the entire process to a unified admissions system places a technical burden and requires data transparency. The system must synchronize data from various sources and have accurate, reasonable, and publicly available score conversions between methods to ensure fairness. These challenges place a heavy burden on the Ministry of Education and Training and universities, while causing anxiety for candidates and parents.
Therefore, many believe that, starting from next year's admissions season, the Ministry of Education and Training should publish the equivalent conversion rates for admission scores across different methods and subject combinations for universities. This would avoid the situation where each university has a different conversion framework when determining the minimum quality assurance threshold (cutoff score) and the admission cutoff score. Only in this way can candidates conveniently choose and register their preferences, and alleviate societal anxiety regarding the continuous changes in admissions procedures each year.
Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/giam-au-lo-cho-thi-sinh-post806025.html
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