Reduce anxiety for candidates

From July 29, candidates will start paying the admission fee at 15,000 VND/application instead of 20,000 VND as previously announced by the Ministry of Education and Training. This new fee level, agreed upon by the units providing technical infrastructure and payment services, has created more favorable conditions for candidates. However, with 7.6 million applications, the total fee amount still exceeds 110 billion VND - a significant number, raising the issue of efficiency and savings in the admission process.

In fact, the registration process this year is not easy, especially for candidates with average or good scores. The registration for admission on the general system has been completed, but on forums with many parents and candidates following, parents and students are still worried. Candidates who scored 28 points or more can be somewhat assured, but for the remaining candidates, especially those applying to top and middle schools, the feeling of "sitting on fire" is real. Because this year, for the first time, the Ministry of Education and Training has stipulated that universities must convert the scores of admission methods to a unified scale. However, each school has a different conversion method, leading to a situation of "a hundred flowers blooming" in terms of criteria and scoring methods - confusing candidates and confusing parents.

Many parents commented that their children's admission application this year is like a "matrix". Because they are unclear and not confident with the conversion methods of the schools, candidates are forced to "spread out" many wishes to increase the chance of being admitted. Candidates with average and good scores cannot easily base their admission application on last year's benchmark scores, because last year's benchmark scores are calculated in a different way, not suitable for comparison. Teacher Vu Khac Ngoc ( Hanoi ), one of the teachers that parents and candidates are interested in with online admissions advice, also had to recommend that students: in the context of difficult to predict benchmark scores like this year, they should spread out more wishes to increase their chances and be more certain. "The range of scores, conversion, percentile, and additional criteria, etc. are really confusing", many parents commented.

This confusion can be seen in part through the numbers: there are a total of about 7.6 million admission applications this year, with an average of nearly 9 applications per candidate. In 2024, the Ministry of Education and Training did not publish this data, but in 2023, the average application rate was just over 3. This large number of applications could also be a challenge for this year's virtual filtering.

Another notable point in this year's admissions is the complete abolition of early admissions. All admission methods, whether based on high school graduation exam results, academic records, competency assessment exams or international certificates, are all conducted in one round. With this new regulation, the Ministry of Education and Training hopes to help reduce time and cost pressures for candidates and their families, ensuring fairness and transparency in accessing university opportunities. The admissions system will automatically determine which subject combination or admission method will bring the highest score for each candidate. As a result, students do not need to worry about choosing the wrong combination or missing out on opportunities due to technical errors when registering.

However, according to many experts, converting the entire process to a unified admission system poses a technical burden and requires data transparency. The system must synchronize data from many different sources and have accurate, reasonable, and public score conversion between methods to ensure fairness. These things put a "burden" on the shoulders of the Ministry of Education and Training and universities, while candidates and parents have many concerns.

Therefore, many opinions suggest that, from next year's admission season, the Ministry of Education and Training should announce the equivalent conversion rate of admission scores between methods and common admission combinations for universities. This will avoid the situation where each school has a different conversion framework when determining the threshold to ensure input quality (floor score) and admission standard score. Only then will it be convenient for candidates in the process of choosing and registering their wishes, as well as reducing social concerns about the continuous innovations in admission work every year.

LAM NGUYEN

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/giam-au-lo-cho-thi-sinh-post806025.html