University Admissions 2024: Increasing Opportunities, Increasing Pressure for Candidates
(Baonghean.vn) - Instead of just one traditional method, this year, university admissions are being implemented by schools simultaneously with many different methods. This opens up opportunities but also puts a lot of pressure on candidates.
Many opportunities for candidates
Dau Quyen Linh - a 12B student at the High School for Gifted Sports is facing many opportunities to be directly admitted to university. Therefore, even though the graduation exam is only 3 months away, Linh is not too worried. Instead, Linh spends time choosing the school she loves.
Dau Quyen Linh is a boxer with an impressive record of nearly 20 medals in various tournaments. Most recently, he won a gold medal in a national tournament and qualified for direct admission to majors in the physical education field.
I hope to become a teacher or coach in the future, so I plan to enroll in the Physical Education major at Hanoi National University of Education. In addition, I will continue to review for my graduation exam to get a high score and expand my opportunities for admission to other majors, besides sports... Due to the tight training schedule, Linh will also participate in a new tournament at the end of March, so Linh's studies need to be distributed scientifically. Currently, Linh mainly studies at school in the afternoons. In addition, I also register to study other subjects besides Math and English because I plan to apply for university admission in group D.
Before the university entrance exam, Hoang Le Kim Bao - a 12th grade student majoring in Physics at Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted - had already equipped himself with a "thick" luggage to be able to be directly admitted to many universities in the country.
Accordingly, in addition to being an excellent student for many consecutive years, Kim Bao also won a prize at the National Excellent Student Competition for Grade 11. Having completed his main task, since the end of summer in Grade 11, he has focused on studying for two important certificates, which are the IELTS 7.5 foreign language certificate and completing the SAT exam with outstanding results, reaching 1500 points. To achieve this result, this male student also said that studying and reviewing need to have a suitable and scientific roadmap. At the same time, it is necessary to accumulate knowledge throughout the high school process to avoid having to study too hard, leading to a lot of pressure in studying.
To increase his chances of admission, Huy Quan, a 12th grader at Huynh Thuc Khang High School, will retake the SAT exam a second time in mid-March, even though his previous SAT score was sufficient to qualify for admission to several universities.
Choosing to take the SAT exam according to Quan at this time is reasonable because currently there are many universities, including many top universities such as the University of Science and Technology, the National Economics University, all consider this as one of the criteria for direct admission. Meanwhile, to use other methods such as considering graduation exam scores, ability assessment test scores, the competition will be more difficult because there are too many candidates participating.
Lots of pressure
Although he has only started opening SAT preparation classes in the past two years, teacher Ba Phong - Head of Information Technology Department, Vinh University of Industry and a person with many years of experience teaching Math in English - said that the number of students registering to take the SAT exam is increasing.
Every month I open an online class and many students join. In addition to Nghe An students, students from many other provinces and cities also register to have more opportunities to apply to university.
In the list of students studying in Mr. Ba Phong's class, not only grade 12 students but also many grade 10 and grade 11 students have registered. Many students also set goals, complete their studies and have certificates before entering grade 12 to reduce pressure and have more time to complete the program at school. Through experience in organizing review classes for many classes, Mr. Phong also said that having SAT certificates in the past was mainly to serve students studying abroad.
However, the fact that more and more universities are using certificates for admission has caused many students to change their way of thinking and studying: SAT is a standardized aptitude test widely used for university admission in the US education system.
This exam will test students' Reading, Language, and Math skills, so they need to prepare and have a suitable study schedule. Getting a score of 1200 points or higher to be admitted to university is not too difficult, so many students have chosen it with the ultimate goal of securing a place in university - Mr. Ba Phong added.
In the past 5 years, the university admission method has changed a lot. In previous years, apart from a few subjects that were given priority for direct admission according to regulations, the rest of the university admission was mostly based on the exam scores from the High School Graduation Exam.
However, currently, each school has an average of 4-6 admission methods. Notably, admission based on graduation exam scores is no longer an advantage when top universities only enroll 20-30% of their quota.
Instead, schools give priority to students with foreign language certificates, students with international SAT or ACT certificates, or consider scores according to the Aptitude Test, and evaluate thinking according to the university's own exam questions. These methods have become more popular this year as many universities have abandoned the admission method based on academic records to replace it with other methods that are more reputable and more accurately assess candidates' abilities.
This change has had a huge impact on students. Most recently, on February 18, during the registration period for the Hanoi National University's competency assessment exam, more than 96,200 accounts logged in to register for the competency assessment exam, causing the school's system to be congested for many hours.
My child and I started registering at 9am and for the next 3 hours, the network was congested and we could not log in. My child planned to register for the first round of exams at Vinh University this April, but when he could not register, I thought of sending him to Hanoi to take the exam, even though it was expensive. The large number of candidates taking the exam puts a lot of pressure on the children because the competition will be more difficult and the scores will certainly be higher than previous years.
Regarding this exam, the reason why more and more candidates are taking the exam is because the scores of the competency assessment test of universities such as Hanoi National University, University of Science and Technology, Ho Chi Minh City National University are used for admission by hundreds of other universities.
However, organizing separate exams may be a trend in the near future because currently, in addition to the three universities above, other universities such as Hanoi Pedagogical University, Ho Chi Minh City Pedagogical University, Ho Chi Minh City Banking University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, and public security schools have also implemented their own exams for admission.
Organizing separate exams to objectively assess students' abilities will increase their chances of admission. However, on the other hand, with candidates having to take separate exams and still having to attend the High School Graduation Exam, students today are under a lot of pressure in terms of time, number of subjects, and costs and travel. This will be an obstacle for students in districts far from the center, students in remote areas and this is the reason why many 12th graders are no longer interested in taking exams and applying to universities./.
