A separate issue occurred at the Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City. Despite scoring above the published admission threshold, many applicants to the Law and Economic Law programs were not accepted due to changes in the eligibility criteria.

Originally, the university announced that applicants must score at least 6 out of 10 in either Mathematics or Literature. Later, however, the university updated the requirement to a minimum of 6 points in both subjects to qualify.

On the morning of August 26, the university reversed its decision and confirmed it would uphold the original criteria: applicants using subject combinations involving Math and Literature would only need to score at least 6 in either subject.

System errors lead to incorrect admission results

Several students encountered another serious issue this year: some were informed they had failed all choices, despite having scores above the cutoff for lower-priority preferences. Others were mistakenly reported as admitted to the wrong program.

One student shared online that she applied to Psychology at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education (second choice), and Legal Education at Hue University of Education (third choice). She missed the cutoff for her second choice but exceeded the score for her third. Yet, the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) system showed she had been rejected from all programs. When she contacted Hue University, they informed her that she had been admitted to her second-choice program instead.

In another case, a student with a score of 25.71 applied to several programs in Mathematics Education and Primary Education at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education and Saigon University. While she met the score requirement of 25.17 for Primary Education at Saigon University, the system showed she had failed. Ho Chi Minh City University of Education later explained that this was due to a technical error and that she had, in fact, been accepted by Saigon University. However, Saigon University insisted that she had been admitted to a higher-preference program at the University of Education.

Conflicting messages from the two institutions left the student confused about her actual enrollment status.

The University of Education admitted that some students who did not meet the score threshold were still shown as accepted due to system errors. The university submitted an official report to the MoET and related universities. They explained that once the virtual admission filtering was completed by the Ministry, no additional choices could be processed.

To protect students' rights, the university asked the MoET to allow affected students to be reconsidered for other preferences and urged collaboration among schools to assist them.

Speaking with VietNamNet, an admissions expert stated that these issues were largely the result of how schools handled preference rankings and the technical execution of the selection process.

A deputy rector at a university in Hanoi pointed out that this year’s process differed significantly from previous years, placing greater pressure on universities. “Many of these issues weren’t caused by individual mistakes but stemmed from systemic changes, particularly in how unified admissions were processed,” the official said.

Thanh Hung