Universities await instructions on point conversion

Students from Ca Mau province asked many questions about university and college admission regulations at the Admissions and Career Guidance Program organized by Tuoi Tre newspaper in 2025 - Photo: HOANG GIAM

These are the new points in the 2025 university and college admission regulations for preschool education that the Ministry of Education and Training has just officially issued.

Create fairness in admissions

The new regulation also removed the requirement for training programs, each major and each program has a maximum of 4 admission combinations; candidates can be admitted with an unlimited number of admission combinations.

However, to ensure the quality of input for university level, the new regulation stipulates that the admission combination must have at least 3 suitable subjects, in which math or literature accounts for at least 25% of the weight. From 2026, the common subjects of the combination must contribute at least 50% of the weight for calculating the score.

With bonus points, the department requires candidates to have bonus points that do not exceed 10% of the maximum score of the scoring scale (for example, with a 30-point scale, the maximum is 3 points).

In addition, the new regulation stipulates that schools can convert foreign language certificates into foreign language subject scores to include in the admission subject group, but foreign language subject scores converted from foreign language certificates have a weighted score that cannot exceed 50%.

Dr. Le Anh Duc, head of the training management department of the National Economics University, said that the adjustments in the university and college admission regulations in 2025 basically create favorable conditions for training institutions and candidates in the selection process in a more streamlined, fair and effective manner.

There are three fundamental new points that have a great impact on the system. Firstly, the early admission is eliminated, all systems will consider admission according to a common plan after the high school graduation exam results are available, helping candidates not to be distracted by early admission as before, focusing on studying at high school level and participating in capacity assessment exams, preparing the best conditions to participate in the admission exam.

Second, the general regulation that training institutions must determine the equivalent conversion rules for input thresholds and admission scores of admission methods, admission methods, and admission combinations helps training institutions not need to allocate separate expenses for each admission method and combination, but will conduct admission simultaneously in the same system.

This ensures more streamlining in the admission process than before. Previously, training institutions could conduct admission multiple times with different admission methods and have many different admission benchmarks corresponding to the admission methods with the same admission code.

Third, the Ministry of Education and Training will have general guidance for training institutions in equivalence conversion, which is also a favorable adjustment, helping to ensure consistency throughout the system when converting and being able to use data on this year's exam results for analysis. This increases the accuracy and reliability of equivalence conversion.

Worry when each school does it differently

According to Dr. Le Anh Duc, in fact, the National Economics University has researched and has an equivalent conversion rule based on analyzing input data and learning outcomes of more than 20,000 admitted students in the past three years.

Mr. Duc said that it is expected that by the first week of April 2025 at the latest, the National Economics University will announce an enrollment plan with the latest updated information in accordance with the amendments in the newly issued regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training.

"Basically, the changes in this year's regulations are all aimed at creating favorable conditions for candidates in the admission process. Regardless of the equivalent conversion rules, candidates with good abilities demonstrated through the results of the ability assessment/thinking assessment exam, high school graduation exam... will certainly still have many opportunities to be admitted to good schools and majors," said Mr. Duc.

According to Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh - former head of the Department of Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Training, the new university and college admission regulations show that the Ministry of Education and Training has tried to absorb the opinions of long-time admission officers at universities to make changes in this year's regulations such as eliminating early admission, candidates must consider their transcripts for the entire 12th grade year, and limit the bonus points to no more than 10% of the total score...

Mr. Vinh said the biggest concern at present is that universities using many admission methods will have to determine the equivalent conversion rules for the entrance threshold and admission scores of all methods and combinations to a common scale.

In fact, many schools are worried about the conversion coefficient chaos because "each school has a different formula, no school converts the same way".

"The Ministry of Education and Training must have specific instructions for schools to convert benchmark scores, and what scientific basis for conversion should be based on to avoid causing unfairness and inequality," said Mr. Vinh, emphasizing that this is something that needs to be done immediately.

Difficult, complex problem

Master Cu Xuan Tien, Head of Admissions and Student Affairs Department of the University of Economics and Law (Ho Chi Minh City National University), commented that the new points in the admission regulations that the Ministry of Education and Training has just announced are very suitable for the current context, with candidates being the first generation of the new general education program.

Specifically, removing the limit on admission combinations, eliminating early admission, adding incentive points, bonus points, general subject weights of admission combinations, and academic results for the entire 12th year... this will help make the admission process fairer and more transparent.

However, according to Mr. Tien, converting scores is an extremely complicated issue, requiring schools to be extremely careful to ensure the rights and fairness for candidates.

Because although schools have data on admission scores and academic results from previous years, the conversion coefficient for each year will depend on the score range of each exam, the number and quality of candidates applying for each method.

Detailed instructions needed soon

Universities are waiting for detailed instructions on score conversion from the Ministry of Education and Training. In the photo: Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of the Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education and Training), provides information on admission at the 2025 Admissions and Career Counseling Day in Hanoi - Photo: NAM TRAN

MSc. Pham Thai Son, Director of the Admissions and Communications Center of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, also said that the 2025 university admission regulations have some new adjustments suitable for universities and candidates, in which the regulation of expanding the admission combination helps universities attract more candidates and opens up opportunities for students with strengths in different subjects.

"The benefit of expanding the admission combination helps candidates have more choices, not being limited to a fixed group of subjects. They can choose the combination that best suits their strengths and interests, avoiding the situation of having to try to study well in subjects that are not their strengths.

This creates more flexibility in career orientation, especially for candidates who have studied subjects that are not part of the industry's traditional combination but still have the opportunity to apply without having to start over from the beginning," Mr. Son analyzed.

However, Mr. Son also warned that expanding too many admission combinations without clear evaluation criteria could lead to uneven input quality.

Some combinations may not accurately reflect the competencies required for the field of study, especially those that require solid foundational knowledge such as medicine, architecture, engineering, technology, etc.

"In addition, according to the regulations stated in the charter, universities must develop and publicize a conversion table between admission methods such as high school exams, transcripts, international certificates, etc.

The conversion of scores must be fair, not causing disadvantage or excessive priority to any group of candidates. For example, an IELTS certificate of 6.5 can be converted to 8 or 9 points for English in the D01 group or any group with English.

The conversion needs to calculate many other sub-coefficients, but it is not certain that it is accurate because we do not know what this year's exam will be like, the quantity and quality of candidates submitting applications... Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to soon have detailed instructions on this matter," Mr. Son suggested.

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