IELTS candidates for National Economics 'increasing sharply'

11,000 candidates used foreign language certificates, mainly IELTS, to apply to the National Economics University, a hundredfold increase compared to 50-70 applications in 2017.

At the admission and career counseling day on the morning of July 9, Associate Professor Dr. Bui Duc Trieu, Head of Training Management Department, National Economics University (NEU), said he was "very happy and surprised" about the number of candidates using international language certificates to apply to the school.

National Economics University is the pioneer university to use IELTS and TOEFL for admission, starting in 2017. The school uses certificates instead of English scores in the three-subject combination of the national high school exam, requiring 6.5 IELTS or equivalent. Mr. Trieu said that year, about 50-70 candidates had international English certificates. By 2018, the number of candidates with certificates increased nearly 10 times, to 300-400, then continued to reach 2,000 in 2019.

"This year, we received about 11,000 applications with English certificates. The number of candidates in this group has increased sharply over the past 6 years," said Mr. Trieu. Meanwhile, the target for considering this combined certificate in 2023 is about 2,800.

Not only increasing in quantity, Mr. Trieu said that a few years ago, 6.5 IELTS "was already a big deal", but currently about 70% of candidates pass the admission test with 6.5 IELTS or higher, mostly at 7.0.

To verify the quality of admissions using English certificates, the National Economics University surveyed the output results of the 2017 student group. On a 10-point scale, the school found that the overall score of this group was about 0.3 points higher than the group based on exam scores. According to Mr. Trieu, the difference of 0.3 does not sound big, but this is the result of four years with more than 100 credits. Therefore, this result shows that the group of candidates with English certificates "have the ability to study and achieve good results during the training process".

"This shows that our admission orientation contributes to promoting a strong English learning movement. After all, English is an important key in international integration," said Mr. Trieu.

Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Duc Trieu at the admission and career counseling day of the National Economics University, morning of July 9. Photo: Thanh Hang — Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Duc Trieu at the admission and career counseling day of the National Economics University, morning of July 9. Photo: *Thanh Hang*

This year, the National Economics University will enroll 6,200 students. Of these, graduation exam scores account for only 25% of the target, 73% are for combined admission methods according to the school's own project, and 2% are for direct admission according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training and the school.

In this separate project, the school divides candidates into five groups: those who are admitted using international SAT or ACT certificates (DT1); those who use test scores to assess their ability and thinking (DT2); those who combine English certificates with test scores to assess their ability and thinking (DT3) or high school graduation exam scores (DT4); those who consider their transcripts and those who combine them with graduation exam scores for students from specialized schools (DT5). The groups of candidates who use English certificates for admission account for about 45% of the total enrollment target.

In the 2023-2024 school year, tuition fees at the National Economics University are about 16-22 million VND per year for standard programs.

Thanh Hang

Source link