Conversion of equivalent admission scores: There are still many conflicting opinions

C THERE IS ONLY ONE STANDARD SCORE FOR EACH INDUSTRY CODE

On March 21, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular No. 06/2025/TT-BGDDT amending and supplementing a number of articles in the regulations on university and college admissions for preschool education (hereinafter referred to as the 2025 university admission regulations). The regulations have a number of new points, including the regulation on equivalent conversion of admission scores (also known as benchmark scores), which still has many conflicting opinions.

According to the 2025 university admission regulations, universities are allowed to use multiple admission methods for the same program/major/group of majors (hereinafter referred to as majors). However, each major code has only one standard score, instead of having different standard scores for each method (there are also no different standard scores for each combination).

Yesterday morning, March 21, the Ministry of Education and Training announced the university admission regulations for 2025. This year's 12th graders will be the first batch to be admitted under the new regulations.

PHOTO: VU DOAN

Specifically, if a major has multiple admission methods or multiple admission combinations, the university must determine the conversion rules equivalent to the entrance threshold and admission scores of the admission methods, admission methods, and admission combinations according to the general instructions of the Ministry of Education and Training. Schools do not specify separate admission codes or quotas for each admission method or admission combination (except for the regulation of direct admission quotas).

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, with this regulation, universities do not have to allocate quotas for admission methods, avoiding risks when considering admission according to the quotas of each method such as the difference in scores between methods being too large, some methods with very high admission scores, admission scores based on transcripts being lower than admission scores based on high school graduation exam results, etc.

In addition, to ensure that candidates have full information during the registration process, the regulations specifying the equivalence conversion rules must be publicly announced at the latest at the same time as the time of announcing the input quality assurance threshold. Candidates do not need to choose a method code, combination code... they only need to clearly identify the program, major, group of majors and training institution they wish to study to decide to register. The general enrollment support system of the Ministry of Education and Training will use the method with the highest results of the candidates for admission consideration.

" HEADACHE PROBLEM"

According to Associate Professor Nguyen Phong Dien, Vice President of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, the regulation of converting equivalent admission scores to a common scale, then determining a standard score on that common scale, will be a "headache" for universities. The bigger problem is that it will be very difficult for schools to explain to parents and candidates while no expert dares to be sure that their school's conversion method ensures fairness for all candidates.

"The nature of the exams themselves is very different. Some exams may be similar, such as the TSA thinking assessment exam of Hanoi University of Science and Technology and the HSA competency assessment exam of Hanoi National University, so the scores can be converted to the same scale. But the TSA exam and the high school graduation exam are not equivalent in nature, so how can they be converted? The TSA or HSA score distribution is both bell-shaped, the high school exam score distribution is not like that, so how can we compare?", Associate Professor Nguyen Phong Dien commented.

He analyzed: "High school exam scores have a 30-point scale, TSA scores have a 100-point scale. There is an opinion that the average student will be able to do the test at 20 points on the high school graduation exam, so it is possible to convert that score to 50 TSA points. But how can we convert like that when the percentage of candidates achieving the median scores of the two exams is completely different (due to the different nature of the exams, the quality of the test is also very different)! To convert, the most feasible way is to divide the high school graduation exam score range into segments and then convert on each segment, very complicated".

Another problem, according to Associate Professor Nguyen Phong Dien, is that it will cause people to fall into a maze when looking for information on equivalent point conversions of universities.

Grade 12 students are in the period of studying and reviewing for high school graduation exams and university admissions.

Photo: Dao Ngoc Thach

REPLACE ANOTHER WRONG ONE WITH ONE WRONG ONE?

According to many training department officials, since the Ministry of Education and Training released the draft admission regulations, there have been many disagreements about the regulations on equivalent conversion of benchmark scores. There have also been many opinions discussed on the sidelines with the hope that the Ministry of Education and Training will consider when issuing this regulation. However, the Ministry still believes that it is necessary to change, arguing that schools have no scientific basis when determining how many quotas this method has, how many quotas that method has with the same major code. This leads to unfairness for candidates, with the situation of better candidates failing, worse candidates passing (same major code) due to registering for admission using different methods.

An officer of the training department of a technical school in Hanoi commented that the Ministry of Education and Training's issuance of the above regulation is a way of replacing one wrong thing with another. It is true that dividing the quota for each method that schools do has no basis, but forcing them to convert to a single standard score also has no basis. This person analyzed: "If schools are forced to convert, they can convert in any way. However, no matter what equivalent score is converted, schools will not have any scientific basis."

Regarding this issue, according to some schools, there is a temporary solution to the problem caused by the regulation on equivalent conversion of standard scores in the 2025 university admission regulations: the Ministry of Education and Training should announce the distribution of high school transcript scores (all 3 years of study) nationwide. Based on this distribution, schools will compare the distribution of high school transcript scores with the distribution of high school graduation exam scores, thereby drawing out the rule of difference between the two distributions, then there will be a basis for conversion.