4 mistakes that make students fail the university entrance exam

By the end of April, most universities had announced their 2024 enrollment information. Many schools are offering early admissions using a variety of methods and criteria.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training, more than 200 schools currently use about 20 admission methods. Having many methods and criteria sometimes confuses candidates, leading to unfortunate mistakes and failures.

Below are some common mistakes in previous years' admissions, according to schools:

Forget the secondary criteria

In the admission plan, universities clearly state the admission conditions and priority order. These conditions can be academic records, scores of a subject in a group or health and age requirements.

However, in reality, many candidates do not read the conditions carefully, leading to reaching the standard score but still failing after the school checks their records.

For example, at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, every year there are dozens of cases of students lacking academic records. Therefore, even though they were announced to be admitted based on their graduation exam scores, these students later failed.

Misunderstanding about early admission

Most universities consider early admission with popular methods such as considering transcripts, international certificates, and combining multiple criteria.

When a candidate is "admitted early", schools send an email notification and often include a note about registering the admitted choice as the first choice. Some schools negotiate with candidates about committing and confirming early admission.

The Ministry of Education and Training notes that "early admission" is only a temporary result. Students need to complete the steps to register their wishes on the Ministry's common system after graduating from high school, even if they have "passed" their wishes. Otherwise, "early admission" is meaningless.

On the contrary, candidates are not required to register for the major they "admitted early" if they do not really like it.

Associate Professor Nguyen Thu Thuy, Director of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Training, in admissions consultation sessions, always reminds candidates to put their most favorite choice as their first choice, instead of putting the choice they were admitted to early but did not really like first.

In the 2024 university admissions guidelines issued on April 26, the Ministry of Education and Training also prohibits schools from requiring or agreeing with candidates to commit to or confirm early admission in any form (paying deposit fees, keeping records, etc.).

Not paying attention to how to calculate admission scores

Normally, universities calculate admission scores as the total score of 3 subjects in the combination according to the transcript, high school graduation exam results, plus priority and incentive points. However, some schools have different calculation methods.

For example, at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, some majors prioritize math scores and calculate scores according to the formula: (math x 2 + subject 2 + subject 3) x 3/4 + priority score. This formula caused the two top students of group A00 (math, physics, chemistry) nationwide to fail their first choice last year.

Candidates need to understand how to calculate admission scores for each school and each major to consider the possibility of admission and then make a decision.

Changed preferences to the wrong group when registering for military school

The military school block has the characteristic that candidates must pass the preliminary round with criteria on health, politics, and ethics.

The 17 military schools are divided into two groups. The group that trains technical officers includes the Military Medical Academy, the Military Science Academy, and the Military Technical Academy. The group that trains command, political, and logistics officers includes the remaining schools. Some conditions will differ between the two groups of schools.

For example, the height requirement for male candidates applying for the command officer group is at least 1.65 m, but for the technical professional officer group it is only 1.63 m. Regarding vision, the command officer group does not accept candidates with refractive errors while the other group is allowed to accept candidates with refractive errors of no more than 3 diopters.

Candidates can only register their first choice for a military school right from the initial application. When changing their choice, candidates can only change their choice within the same group. If they change their choice to a school in a different group than the school they registered for during the initial application because they got a high score, they will be rejected even if they meet the standard score. This case has appeared in previous years.

According to the plan of the Ministry of Education and Training, universities will complete the admission process early and notify candidates of the results before 5:00 p.m. on July 10. Candidates can register and adjust their wishes on the Ministry's common system from July 18 to 5:00 p.m. on July 30.

University admission scores for 2024 will be announced before 5:00 p.m. on August 19.