JAMB Drops Cut-off Mark for 2016 Admission

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has finally ditched the allocation of cut off-marks for admissions into tertiary institutions in Nigeria, the guideline for the 2016 admission process released on Monday evening has shown.

According to the Punch, JAMB has adopted the use of  a point system to offer provisional admission to candidates.

“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,” the statement by the examination body explained.



“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, WASSCE, November/December WASSCE etc, but any candidate who has two sittings only gets 2 points. So this means that candidates with only one result are at an advantage but only just.”

The organisation added that the “next point grades fell into the O’ Level grades where each grade would have it 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 summarised thus, 180-200=20-23 marks, 200-250=24-33 points, 251-300=34-43, 300-400=44-60 points,” JAMB explained.

A breakdown, of the UTME point system shows each category would contain five JAMB scores per point added.

For example a candidate with 180-185 gets 20 points, while a candidate with 186-190 gets 21 points.

JAMB added that the point system for direct entry would be released soon. The matriculation board also stated that fees would still be charged for screening which would replace the Post UTME test.

However, JAMB said catchment and educationally less-developed state would still be used for admission into the nation’s tertiary institution.

“Merit contains 45 per cent of the total candidates for a particular course, Catchment contains 35 per cent and ELDS and staff lists contains the rest. Cut off marks will be released by the institutions this year in the form of points and not marks.

“If a school declares its 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.”