Candidates struggle to register for the Hanoi National University's aptitude test

On the morning of February 23, Hanoi National University opened the registration portal for the 2025 HSA exam for all 6 exam sessions, with an estimated number of seats of about 85,000. Each candidate can only register for one exam session.

The registration portal opened at 9am, but at that time, Phuong Thao, a 12th grader in Hanoi, could not access the website. From then until nearly 11am, Thao tried to log in many times but was unsuccessful.

"I was so anxious that I called the hotline and the consultant said it might be because my home network was not good," Thao said. "I felt helpless, not knowing when I could register for the exam." The female student said she wanted to take the HSA exam in the first or second session in Hanoi. But with the current situation, Thao thought that being able to register for any session was lucky.

Like Thao, Le Quoc Huy, a student in Ha Nam, did not dare to go out for breakfast, sat in front of his laptop for nearly 2 hours but could not log in. Also thinking that it might be a network problem, Huy asked his sister in Hanoi to try logging in but still could not get through the login step, and many times could not access the website to perform any operations.

"I want to register for the second round of exams at the end of March, but it sounds difficult," Huy said.

Many candidates faced similar situations. On the fanpage "Hanoi National University Examination" and many groups, students and parents simultaneously reported that they could not do anything for hours. Some lucky people got to the step of choosing the exam session and location but were "out".

"While I couldn't access the website, from 10:30 a.m., some student groups were already spreading rumors that the first two exam slots were sold out, making me even more worried," Huy said.

In fact, some candidates were able to register for the exam right after the school opened the registration portal. Doan Phuong, a 12th grade student in Phu Tho, successfully registered at 9:00 a.m. for the afternoon exam on March 29 in Hanoi.

"Maybe I'm lucky. My friends around me were still struggling to register at 11 o'clock," Phuong said.

A representative of the Hanoi National University Examination Unit said that since the registration portal opened this afternoon, the number of accounts accessing the portal has been very large. The monitoring system recorded that from 9:00 to 10:47, there were always over 250,000 users and 121,055 candidate accounts logging in to choose the exam session, leading to congestion. Candidates had to wait about 30 to 60 minutes to choose the exam location and session.

By 11:50 a.m., the university had recorded nearly 89,200 test takers, exceeding expectations and reaching 99.8% of its planned capacity (90,000 test seats in 2025). Candidates who want to take another test can register from March 3, but most test locations and sessions are full, so the probability of success is very low.

A parent in Hanoi said that at that time her child was able to log in but could not choose any exam session because "there were no more seats". The whole family was in turmoil because they were worried that their child would not be able to take the exam.

This is not the first time that the network congestion has occurred when registering for the Hanoi National University's competency assessment exam. In previous years, the university explained that the number of simultaneous accesses to the registration portal was too high. Many students ran out of places to take the exam at their desired location and had to move to other provinces and cities. For example, candidates in Hanoi had to go to Thai Nguyen or Thai Binh to rent a room to take the exam.

HSA Exam Registration Guide

The HSA is one of the two largest private exams in the country, with about 90 universities using the results for admission. Last year, the exam had more than 100,600 candidates, a record high.

The 2025 exam will take place in 6 sessions, with a one-time fee of 600,000 VND. The specific schedule, location, and scale of the exam sessions are as follows: