DESPITE SCORING ABOVE 300 IN UTME, 1,456 CANDIDATES MISSED UNIVERSITY ADMISSION

A total of 1,456 candidates who scored 300 and above out of the possible score of 400 in the 2020 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) failed to secure admission to Nigerian tertiary institutions for the 2020/2021 academic session.
The registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Is-haq Oloyede, made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday during the 2021 admission policy meeting where guidelines for admission processes for the 2021/2022 academic calendar were approved.

In his presentation at the meeting, which was tagged, “Titbits on 2020 admission and 2021 UTME,” Mr Oloyede said out of the 4,948 applicants who scored 300 and above, only 3,492 gained admissions into higher institutions, leaving out a total of 1,456 applicants stranded.

Meanwhile, about 52, 323 candidates scored between 250 and 299 in the same examination, out of which 22,580 candidates were also not admitted.
In the same vein, some 193,661 candidates out of 347,469 who scored between 200 and 249 were not offered admission.

The presentation also highlighted nine reasons why the high-performing candidates did not gain admission.

The registrar said the factors include applicants’ rigidity, that is when a candidate who wants a particular programme refuses to settle for anything else; wrong O’level subject combination; low post-UTME screening score; UTME-combination deficiency, and non-acceptance of the offer.

Other reasons are duplication of application, absence from post-UTME screening, mismatch of catchment institutions, and also where candidates fail to upload their O’level with five credits in the required subjects.
The 2020 figure of candidates who scored 300 and above but could not gain admission indicated a significant increase from that of 2019 which is about 679 candidates.