University Admissions 2026: Consider controlling admission wishes

Tuyển sinh đại học 2026: Cân nhắc khống chế nguyện vọng xét tuyển - Ảnh 1. — Students learn about admission information at the admission fair organized by Tuoi Tre newspaper - Photo: THANH HIEP

In the 2025 enrollment report, Mr. Nguyen Tien Thao - Director of the Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education and Training) - said that the number of successful candidates in the system this year is 773,167 (an increase of 95,181 candidates compared to 2024) out of a total of 849,544 registered candidates. However, only 625,477 candidates confirmed their enrollment in the first round.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, there are still 147,690 candidates who passed the entrance exam but did not enroll in university, accounting for 19.1%.

Referendum on controlling the number of wishes

At the conference, the Ministry of Education and Training also sought opinions from universities on whether or not to limit the number of admission requests. Specifically, should each candidate limit their requests to a maximum of 5 or 10 requests or not limit them as at present?

Ms. Tran Thi My Dieu - Principal of Van Lang University - expressed her opinion at the conference that "it is necessary to control the number of wishes". Controlling the number requires candidates to grasp information and think carefully when choosing their admission wishes. Avoid registering too much without a clear direction for future careers, and being admitted but not enrolling.

But Ms. Dieu also proposed that "the system should allow a candidate to be admitted to a group of schools (instead of being admitted to a single choice as it is now) so that the candidate can choose one of those choices. This proposal was not agreed by many universities because it would increase "virtual", something that the admission system has had to solve for many years with virtual filtering software.

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Mr. Nguyen Tien Thao shared: Looking at the 2025 data, the number of candidates registering for more than 10 wishes is not much (29.5%), but it can also be seen that the number of candidates admitted to the 9th and 10th wishes is not much or they were admitted but did not choose. That shows that candidates register for many wishes because of fear of risk, need to "prevent failure" or for reasons that are not in line with the enrollment target.

Registering many wishes also makes candidates irresponsible and unmotivated to try to achieve what they really want, while the large number of wishes is a difficulty for the admission process. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training wants to survey opinions to consider adjustments in the following years.

Eliminate or keep high school transcript admission?

Another content that the Ministry of Education and Training also surveyed was whether to keep, remove or adjust the admission method based on high school transcripts. In 2025, universities will use 17 admission methods and have adjusted the regulations to consider admission at the same time, after candidates have their high school graduation exam scores (no early admission).

With this year's regulations, candidates do not have to worry about the imbalance in the distribution of quotas between methods, because schools must convert equivalent admission scores. However, difficulties also arise in the process of converting scores due to the many different admission methods. In particular, the method of using high school transcript scores is used by many universities in many combined admission methods.

There are schools that have conditions attached, for example, candidates are only eligible to be admitted when the graduation exam subjects that coincide with the subjects used for admission must meet the threshold score set by the school. However, there are schools that do not have any conditions attached.

The use of high school transcripts in recent years has caused controversy. Many people are skeptical about transcript scores because they believe that they can be "fabricated" to benefit a group of candidates. If this is true, it will be unfair to candidates who are admitted by other methods.

Statistics from the ministry also show that in 2025, admission methods based on academic records will account for 42.4%, admission methods based on high school graduation exam scores will account for 39.1%, and the rest will be other methods.

Mr. Nguyen Tien Thao said that the consultation of universities to add an assessment channel for the Ministry of Education and Training to consider whether to remove or use the method of considering high school transcripts for admission or what conditions are needed to ensure quality and limit negative situations that may occur. If the "removal of admission based on high school transcripts" is implemented, the 2026 admission will have a significant disruption because this is still considered a main admission method.

Highly appreciate the ability and thinking test

At the conference, representatives of several universities highly appreciated the reliability of the competency and thinking assessment exams. Representatives of Ho Chi Minh City University of Law shared their desire to have a separate competency assessment exam for the law industry, which could include a tool to more closely assess the specific competencies needed for this field.

Proposal to soon announce the 2026 admission method

The Ministry of Education and Training requires training institutions to announce the 2026 enrollment methods in October 2025 for candidates to know. At the same time, announce the enrollment plan applicable from 2027.

The Ministry of Education and Training also said it will announce revised and supplemented admission regulations to overcome problems in university and college admissions in 2025 and ensure fairness, reliability, and consistency with the 2018 General Education Program.

In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training said it is planning to issue a new policy on regional priority for candidates in the context of merging provinces and cities.