The aim of this article is to address issues around cut-off marks, the position of JAMB on general cut-off, and the position of various institutions about pass marks.
JAMB Cut-offs 2024/2025
- Universities: 140
- Polytechnic and colleges of education: 100
Is JAMB cut-off mark an assurance that you will be given admission?
Every year, admission seekers into higher institutions across Nigeria are worried about their admission status, especially when they score below 200 or when their preferred course of study such as Medicine or Law is highly competitive.
A common question among them is: Will I be given admission if I scored above the cut off mark of my desired course?
The cut off is a minimum requirement for admission, it is not a guarantee for admission. The fact that Statistics is your preferred course and you scored 160 in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) doesn’t mean you are guaranteed admission if the course is highly competitive during the academic year.
For instance if there are 100 spaces for admission in the Department of Statistics and 120 out of 200 applicants who aspire to study the course scored between 180 – 200, then your chances of getting admission into the Statistics Department for that year will be slim.
So, meeting the cut off mark or scoring above the pass mark isn’t a guarantee that you’ve secured an admission. This is why you see in most cases that a candidate who scored a cut off mark or above it may not be given admission or may be given another course of study if there are courses in the same faculty that are less competitive for the academic year.
Also, the fact that the Joint Admissions And Matriculation Board (JAMB) pegged the 2024/2025 admission cut-off mark for universities at 140 doesn’t mean institutions will be forced to lower their own pass mark.
For instance, Umaru Musa Yar’adua University Katsina accepts 140 pass marks for admission into the Department of Economics; that isn’t the case for UNIZIK, which sets admission into Economics at 180.
So, the 140 pass mark set by JAMB is not binding on all institutions. It only means that no university will go below the benchmark.
How does the cut off mark work?
In May 2017, registrar of JAMB Prof. Is-haq Oloyede disclosed that cut-off points are only used as a minimum requirement and “not an indication that one was admissible.”
Although there has been no specific policy on cut off marks. The one set by the examination body has never at any point in time been imposed on any institution.
The examination always had what some candidates prefer to refer to as JAMB cut-off mark or general cutt-off, but in reality, that has never been the case.
During the 2021/2022 admission session, JAMB cancelled a general cut-off for the that was usually set by the body and gave various institutions across the country to fix their cut-off marks.
The former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin was quoted at the time as saying, “There will be no cutoff from JAMB this time (2021/2022). The cutoff will be a combination of scores from JAMB score, university minimum benchmark, SSCE and practical, where applicable.”
Did JAMB fix the cut-off mark for 2024/2025 admission?
No, JAMB has no fixed cut-off mark for the 2024/2025 admission year. However, it set 140 marks as a benchmark for university, 100 for polytechnics and colleges of education.
It is a general cut-off, it doesn’t mean the examination body fixed the pass mark. In a post on its social media handle (on X), it says there was nothing like ‘ ‘cut-off mark’ “in the admission process to tertiary institutions in Nigeria, what’s obtainable is minimum tolerable score determinable by individual institutions.”
From the foregoing, it is safe to conclude that:
- there is nothing like cut off mark judging by what the JAMB registrar said in the past;
- scoring above JAMB cut-off mark cannot guarantee you admission
- scoring above cut-off marks set institutions is dependent on how competitive your preferred course of study is.
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