Restricting early university admission: Are candidates' rights affected?
In recent years, early admission to university is no longer a "strange thing" for many 12th grade candidates. Therefore, the new draft of the Ministry of Education and Training with the "tightening" of the early admission quota to only 20% is receiving the attention of many students.
Many candidates choose early admission option
Phan Phu Cuong - a student of class 12A1 - Nam Dan 1 High School (Nam Dan) is nurturing the dream of entering Hanoi University of Science and Technology. Currently, in addition to studying at school, Cuong is registering for an online review course to participate in the thinking assessment test in the hope of being considered for early admission.
With so many subjects to review at the same time, this candidate said that he was under a lot of pressure: He had considered the option of considering the graduation exam score, but this was very difficult, because his major last year required 27.49 points, more than 9 points/subject. The most feasible and earliest admission option for him now is the thinking assessment exam. However, if the ministry limits the admission quota early, it will make students more worried.
In the same class 12A1 as Cuong, student Nguyen Thao Vy has also prepared many options for university admission. Personally, she is quite confident because she has been an excellent student for 3 consecutive years in high school, and has an IELTS certificate of 7.0.
This female student is also spending time focusing on the competency assessment exam. With the desire to be admitted to the National Economics University, Thao Vy previously believed that she would soon have a direct admission slot because her school in previous years reserved 70% of its quota for early admission. However, now that she has received information that the Ministry will "tighten" the quota to only 20%, Thao Vy is very worried.
Nowadays, we not only have the high school graduation exam but also many other exams if we want to have more opportunities to enter university. Therefore, if we focus too much on the exam, I think our studies will be affected.
In my opinion, the Ministry should not impose quotas on universities but should expand to different admission methods, as long as the quality of candidates is guaranteed.
Student Nguyen Thao Vy - Nam Dan 1 High School
At Nguyen Sy Sach High School (Thanh Chuong), Nguyen Van Toai, a 12th grader, was one of the earliest candidates to take the school's thinking assessment exam because he had taken the exam since 11th grade. Although his score was not high, Toai said that he set a very high goal for this exam, because it was the shortest path for him to enter top universities. This school year, Toai also won second prize in the provincial excellent student category for 12th graders in Mathematics, so he also hopes that he will be considered for direct admission based on his talent.
I felt quite disappointed when the Ministry proposed to only reserve 20% of the admission quota for early consideration.
This will make it more difficult for district school students like us, because schools often give more priority to students from specialized schools when considering talent.
Student Nguyen Van Toai - Nguyen Sy Sach High School
Ensure the rights of candidates
Early admission has been implemented in many universities in the past 6-7 years. Accordingly, instead of only considering admission based on the traditional method of high school graduation exam scores, direct admission for excellent national and international students (according to regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training), schools have many other admission methods, the most popular in recent years is admission based on IELTS foreign language certificates, international certificates such as ACT/SAT.
Recently, many universities have organized their own exams such as aptitude tests and thinking tests, which has made many candidates decide to choose these methods instead of just the graduation exam score as before. Another group often considers admission based on academic transcript scores (usually grades 10, 11 and semester 1 of grade 12).
This school year, our class has nearly 20 excellent students in the province, but they did not choose the graduation exam. Instead, 100% of the students in the class chose to take the thinking assessment exam, the ability assessment exam, or the foreign language certificate exam.
This is also normal because in recent years, the quota of schools with graduation score consideration is very small and the admission score is often very high. Students choosing other options will help them increase their chances of admission.
Teacher Dinh Anh Tuan - homeroom teacher of class 12A1 - Nam Dan 1 High School
From this reality, the Ministry's request for opinions on the draft to reserve only 20% of the early admission quota also leaves concerns, especially for lower-ranking schools. Many opinions say that when universities have been given autonomy, schools must be given the initiative in the admission process.
Regarding this content, recently responding to the media, Ms. Nguyen Thu Thuy, Director of the Department of Higher Education - Ministry of Education and Training clarified the concept."early admission"According to Ms. Thuy, there needs to be a distinction between the concept of "early admission" and "admission method".
Early admission is used to differentiate in terms of time from the general admission period of the Ministry of Education and Training. Meanwhile, admission methods are used in any admission period and candidates can still use all the admission methods that they have prepared, including considering academic records, considering scores of competency assessment exams, thinking assessment, etc.
There are currently concerns and worries surrounding the issue of early admission, especially when the 2025 high school graduation exam is approaching very soon. Responding at the latest press conference of the Government on December 7, 2024, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Hoang Minh Son continued to inform about this issue and said that early admission can lead to a race between schools and increase virtual applications, lacking fairness. Therefore, the Ministry has had solutions so that limiting early admission does not affect the rights of candidates.
We will withdraw so that all candidates can focus on the general admission round, ensuring fairness, quality, efficiency and convenience. The Ministry of Education and Training has fully prepared the database of academic transcripts, high school graduation exam scores, thinking assessment and capacity assessment scores on the system. At that time, universities only need to consider admission and students can rest assured that after finishing grade 12, they can sit down and choose with peace of mind.
Implementing digital transformation will help students not have to submit documents via paper, not have to go to each school to submit documents, but just need to choose the right major and career that suits them conveniently.
Deputy Minister of Education and Training Hoang Minh Son
Regarding the early admission method, according to statistics, the rate of early admission currently accounts for more than 40% of universities. However, the rate of admission by separate exams and direct admission (talented students, students with international certificates) of universities accounts for a small percentage (about 5%), the rest is by transcripts, high school results (accounting for about 30%) and other methods (accounting for about 14%).
Therefore, if students have real ability, the chance for them to be admitted early is still very high.