Why and How to Be Focused While Seeking Admissions

If you’ve been following this series on how to gain admission, there may not be the need for a special introduction or reference to the last posts. If however, you stumble on this page while searching online or a friend referred you here, kindly check the past posts in the series as linked below.

1. Steps to Gain Admission to Nigeria Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges (PART 1)
2. Steps to Gain Admission to Nigeria Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges (PART II)

Now, to the business at hand. We have to talk about being focused while seeking admission. This is one major area where most candidates make mistakes. Candidates are prone to be misled while in a hurry to be admitted. This is why "focus" is important. It’s the only weapon that will hold you through this stage.

The Need To Focus After UTME Result

After having a good or average result in UTME, you will need to focus more than anything else. People will try to influence your decisions. Especially students like you, bloggers, parents, and teachers.

These people seem to wish you the best, yet they may mislead you if care is not taken. They will try to help but instead, they make you get things wrong.

Let’s consider some situations where you can be misguided.

1. During the Change of Institutions and Courses

Some people will ask you to change your course without giving consideration to your O’level result subjects and grades together with the UTME subjects combination.

Some people will not understand the basics of the relevant SSCE and UTME subjects before suggesting a new course for you. Please don’t take to such advice until you find out the requirements and combination of the correct subject.

Checking the three posts below will save you from this dilemma.

1. How to Study JAMB brochure to Avoid Errors
2. How to Check your Eligibility for Admission into a School Before You Do a change of institutions and courses
3. JAMB Mini Brochure to check the required UTME subjects combination

2. Chasing Any Course for that Matter

Similarly, because you’re seeking admission, by all means, you can fall victim to chasing any course for that matter.

I’ve seen very many admission seekers who just wanted to leave home without considering the future of their proposed courses. Don’t join the league of these students. It’s better late than completing a 4-year course but never having a place where you can tender your certificate for jobs.

This is why I recently shared my views on why students should avoid chasing certain courses. I also helped you to see values in some courses that you may not want to consider but they may even be the best for you. And for those who love to go for courses that can prepare them to start their own businesses in the future, you will find this post resourceful.

I advise you to stay focused here. You will need more patience than unreliable advice from brothers and sisters.

Recommended: Is Possible To Change My JAMB Score/Result?

Focus on Your JAMB Results

Sometimes when candidates came up with a lower score in JAMB, they tend to be too worried. Hence, they make stupid mistakes, particularly when considering the change in institutions and courses.

Your lower mark can work well for you if you’re just focused.

With lower marks, you can just wait until your proposed schools decide on the cut-off marks for this year. You may think they will announce a higher mark but go for a lower one. Some schools may disappoint you if you think they will go for lower, but they announce higher.

Even though some schools will retain the cut-off marks they used last year, some will still change to lower or higher marks depending on their policies.

This is why you need patience here.

If however, you’re worried or in a hurry, you can consider a list of universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education accepting lower UTME scores. These universities usually draw lower cut-off marks.

I also have a few schools accepting between 100 and 150. You may find them interesting if you won’t be unnecessarily choosy.

Recommended: I Scored Low in JAMB, What Can I do Next?

Focus After Change of institutions

Though JAMB has started allowing candidates to make the change of institutions/courses more than two times (this started in the 2019/2020 admission year), you wouldn't want to be wasting your money to several changes. I've updated that you can change several times here, yet I don't recommend more than two times of change. You need to be patient to achieve this. Don't forget, that each change requires a separate payment.

If you're confused about what to do after the change of institutions and courses, read the post, “After the change of institutions what next? Kindly take a moment to see that.

If you’d used one of the chances to change the institution or course, you should wait for the new school to decide your fate. You will know your fate on admission if:

1. you don’t score up to the pass mark for your school post UTME. For example, some universities are open with their pass mark - OAU (25/50), UI (50/100), and UNILORIN (50/100). Hence, if you meet or beat this, wait for the admission lists.
2. the school releases the post-UTME departmental cut-off marks, but you didn’t meet up. If you meet up, there is hope.
3. the school releases the admission list but you’re not fortunate to be there. You must still wait for subsequent lists after the first batch.

After waiting for the best, you may fail here. Yet, that’s not the end. Continue reading!

Recommended: How to Prepare For and Pass Post-UTME

Focus and Use the Last Change of Institutions/Course

This is where you must be more careful.

Check if there are schools whose forms are still on sale. Check their cut-off marks and modalities for admission. See if any of them is right for you.

Then, make the new change. You may consider a list of universities that don’t write post UTME or polytechnics and colleges that don’t conduct entrance tests. I suggest these because most of these schools’ post UTME/screening forms may remain open for a very long time especially when most schools had closed theirs.

Here also, be patient. You can be worried especially if you’ve seen other institutions giving admissions to their candidates. Don’t be in a hurry to judge that admission is over for you.

In most cases, schools release two admission lists, at least. If you’re not in the first one you can be lucky in the second or the third. Don’t rush to do the change of institution if you don’t make it in one list.

And for those who may be thinking the admission year will end too sooner, you may be wrong. Here is a dedicated page where I update candidates on when the admission year will end according to JAMB. You can check if it's already updated for this year.

Recommended: How To Decide Courses To Change To - JAMB

Remain Focused if Offered Another Course

Some schools do give automatic admissions and a few will drop their candidates to new courses if they don’t meet up with their proposed courses' cut-off marks.

Remain patient if you fall into this situation. It can be disheartening to be given a different course you’re not interested in. But trust me, you should take it to start with.

If you just accept the admission to another course, you still have a few opportunities:

1. You can be on the campus while still able to write another UTME by next year. Some students believe that once they’d gained admission for one course they won’t be able to change their courses again. Yes, you can! You can sit for another UTME along the way and still be offered admission by the same or another school. A point to note here. You may not be able to run the two programmes at the same time if at the same university. You’re allowed to run the two courses at different universities if you can cope. If otherwise, just drop the old course for the new one.
2. You can apply for the university’s change of course while going to the 200 level. Most universities allow change of course while promoting their 100 level students to 200 level. However, this is a difficult medium. Universities do have very strict policies and higher grade requirements for you to qualify for this opportunity. In fact, some may be pleased to change your course but insist you start from 100 level instead of 200 level. Another thing is candidates will usually be able to change to another course in the same faculty. For example, most universities will only allow the change within the same faculty with only a few allowing inter-faculty changes of admission.
3. Another option is to do change of institutions after being admitted or already in the 200 or 300 level of a university is called inter-university transfer. Some well-known universities such as UNIILORIN, UNIOSUN, UNN, ABU, LAUTECH, etc., and generally all private universities sell forms for inter-university transfer admission. I detailed this in my post, "Inter-University/Transfer Admission in Nigeria: Requirements, Application Process, etc"
4. You can eventually fall in love with the new course. I’ve seen candidates who were given other courses than they applied for. Eventually, they decided to keep the new courses even though they could go for options 1 and 2 above. They’ve seen the future and career prospects for such new courses. They’d eventually realized they would do better at the new courses. This is very common among students. Imagine a candidate seeking Medicine but being offered Forestry. He returned to tell his friends that, if had been offered Medicine and later understood what he now knows about Forestry, he would voluntarily drop Medicine for Forestry.

This is the list of possibilities open to you if you accept another course.

Conclusion

This part is dedicated to preparing your mind for what is to come. It’s aimed at giving you reasons to be focused. Don’t let them confuse you. A majority of people advising you on education are just using ideas. Those that are not, are still living in the past - following they how-they got their own admissions in the 90s and early 20s. They don’t have what it takes to guide you.

I’ve been in the system for more than a decade. This piece is a product of my practical experiences. Take to it.

Wishing you the best.

We’ve come to the end of section 3 on how to gain admission into Nigerian universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education. Let’s proceed to section 4 - Use Open Admission Chances.

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