JAMB releases guidelines for admission on Monday

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on Monday announced the release of its guidelines for admission process this year.

The announcement followed a week of meeting with universities and other tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Announcing the guidelines on its website, the board said that the modalities was going to be based on point system.

The board, which explained   how the admission process would work‎ for JAMB candidates and direct entry students, also stated that universities were going to charge fees for screening of candidates at the end of the process for admission.

According to the board, the new method uses a point system, which is divided into other processes, that is easy to understand.

For instance, it noted among others: “Before a candidate can be considered for screening, he/she must have been given provisional admission by JAMB. The JAMB admission checker portal is going to be opened soon for this process, so praying is all you can do now,” the statement on JAMB’s website said.

The second process, the board said, was the point system where admission would depend on the point tally of the candidate.

“JAMB’s provisional admission no longer makes much sense this year, your points tally will decide your faith.

“The points are evenly spread out between your O’level and JAMB results to provide a level playing field for all.

“In the first case, any candidate who submits only one result which contains his/her relevant subjects already has 10 points, the exam could be NECO, WAEC, GCE etc, but any candidate who has 2 sittings only gets 2 points. So this means that aspirants with only one result are at an advantage but only just,” the statement said.

The board explained that the next point grades fell into the O’level grades where each grade has it’s equivalent point;  A=6 marks, B=4 marks, C=3 marks, so the better the candidates’  grades, the better his or her  chances of securing admission this year.

The next point is the UTME scores where each score range has its equivalent point which can be summarized thus, 180-200=20-23 marks, 200-250=24-33 points, 251-300=34-43, 300-400=44-60 points.

Giving a breakdown, JAMB explained that each categories contains five JAMB results per point added. For example a candidate with 180-185 gets 20 points, a candidate with 186-190 gets 21 points etc, adding that ‎points system for direct entry will be released soon.

The board stated that fees would still be charged for screening which has replaced the Post UTME.

“It  then comes down to the fact that fees will still be charged for screening, it depends on the school as well,” the statement said.

‎It also disclosed that catchment and ELDS will still be used!

“Merit contains 45% of the total candidates for a particular course, Catchment contains 35% and ELDS and staff lists contains the rest.

“Cut off marks will be released by schools this year in the form of points and not marks. If a school declares it’s cut off mark for Medicine as 90 points and JAMB grants a candidate with 250 a provisional admission but his/her total points falls short of the 90 points, then he/she will lose the admission. So the provisional admission is just a means to an end, not the end in itself,” the statement added.