OAU Pre-Degree and UTME [TAGS: OAU, POST-UTME, ADMISSION, CUTOFF, CUT OFF, PREDEGREE, JUPEB]

OAU Pre-Degree and UTME

Like the JUPEB programme, the pre-degree programme, according to generally belief, is a preliminary or remedial programme for higher education aspirants who are unable to pass UTME and candidates who want to boycott UTME, but this is mostly wrong. It is indeed are preliminary or a remedial programme, I don’t know if there is any other school that does it differently, but I know for OAU and some other universities, pre-degree does not carry that general definition; pre-degree rather is for aspirants who are able to score at least 200 in UTME and at least average in the OAU post-UTME too, but they just cannot score high enough to get the course they want in that school, so they resort to using the pre-degree as a remedial route (you will understand this by the end of this article).

OAU is one of those universities that will not conform to it if government says to cancel post-UTME, or NUC and JAMB declares any score lesser than 200 as university cut-off mark. You cannot qualify to write OAU’s post-UTME if your UTME score is anything lesser than 200, in fact, the system will not even recognise your JAMB registration number at the point of registering for the post-UTME; this means you will not even be able to apply for the post-UTME if you score lesser than 200 in your UTME. If you or your ward who has chosen OAU as their first choice of institution score lesser than 200 in the UTME, just don’t bother waiting on OAU’s post-UTME, change the school of choice immediately.

Now, this is the most important part, you see that 200 UTME score required for an applicant to be able to apply for OAU’s post-UTME, that is not the cut-off for admission, it’s only the cut-off for the university’s post-UTME, so don’t be one of those people who think because they have scored 200 in the UTME, they will be offered admission by OAU; as I’ve stated, the 200 is only the university’s cut-off, departments have their own cut-offs too, and if an applicant does not meet their aspired department’s cut-off, the department will not consider them for admission. Also, other departments (which they meet their cut-offs) will not automatically consider them for admission… unless of course they use legs, slots, and all those things. This is possible because a candidate scoring at least average point in each of O/Levels, UTME, and post-UMTE qualifies for an admission—even if they are not qualified for their department because they do not have the department’s cut-off; but if no one is pushing such supplementary admission for you, you are not getting it. So, if your aggregate point after summing all your exams and their points together is at least average but you do not meet your desired department’s cut-off, you can still be admitted to another department which you meet their cut-off, only that you will have to know somebody powerful in the system to push this for you, and you will have to do change of course with JAMB so you can change your choice of course to the one you are given.

If you do not know already, an applicant’s aggregate score is gotten by analysing their O/Level results, UTME result, and post-UTME results, and transposing the grades and scores into points, and adding all the points together to get an aggregate point. This aggregate point is what will compete with the departmental cut-off to determine whether you will get that department or not, and whether you will get an admission in the school or not.

Talking about the pre-degree now, with all that has been discussed, this is why, in OAU, the pre-degree is a remedial programme for students who can score 200 in the UTME, it’s just that they cannot score enough that will get them their aspired department when their UTME score plus other exams have been converted to points. So, if you are a -200 UTME scorer and you know you can never score up to 200 no matter how you prepare, I’d advise you to not bother doing the OAU pre-degree programme; it would be a waste of money and time when all is finished and you have to return home after one year without an admission. If you can score at least average point in all of your needed exams, even if you cannot score up to your desired department’s cut-off, you are definitely going home after the pre-degree programme with an admission—the school will surely fix you to another department which you have their cutoff mark; you don’t have to use legs, slots or anything.

For the pre-degree route to work for you into getting an admission, you must score at least average point as your CGPA at the end of the two contacts (first semester and second semester), your O/Levels when converted to points must reach average at least, you must score at least average in your UTME, (I am not sure of this) but you may need to score at least average in the post-UTME too. For the pre-degree to work for you in getting admitted to your desired course, by the time your scores from the needed exams are converted to points,  you must meet the department’s cut-off. For emphasis, even if you do not meet your desired department’s cut-off, but you have at least average in your exams and the pre-degree CGPA, OAU will automatically consider you for another course which your aggregate score meets, and this is the difference between going through the pre-degree route and the UTME route. Understand these things before going for OAU’s pre-degree, you don’t want to waste money and time. If you need more explanation or consultation on these issues, don’t hesitate to call us on 08139534187.

 

Delayed LASU Transcripts: The Causes and The Ways Out [TAGS: LASU, LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY, TRANSCRIPT, STUDENT COPY]

Delayed LASU Transcripts: The Causes and The Ways Out

Lagos State University (LASU) transcript process just has to be one of the top five slowest state-owned universities’ transcript processes; it has always been so, and staff and applicants have gotten used to the dysfunctional system of processing transcripts that no one is complaining anymore like they used to. I guess when one has complained about a problem so much and no solution, they just adapt to the problem, find their own personal solution to their own part of the problem, or suffer in silence what it causes them—the Nigerian ways. But are these the right way? There are schools elsewhere around the world that are able to deliver your transcript electronically within few hours you submitted an application for such delivery, and if there is any state university or any university at all in Nigeria that has gotten to that level, it should be LASU… Lagos is still the centre of excellence, no?

The problem with applying for your LASU transcript and never having it delivered or having it delivered but way later than you need it looked like it was going to get solved when they introduced the online application system; the online portal is so functional one would think that’s the end of the problem with the transcript process, but no, the problem is not the means of application and payment, it is the process of gathering results and processing them into transcripts. So, the online application portal does not address the major problem, it only solved the problem of people having to come down to school to apply for their transcripts; now, anyone can apply for their transcript anywhere. The problems of delayed delivery and no delivery however continue to exist.

An alumnus of the school can apply for their transcript and make the payment for it online, but if they don’t have extra legs and hands on ground helping them fetch their file, results, pushing everything to the Transcript Unit, monitoring the progress of the transcript production and approval, and bribing this person and that person within all of these, the alumnus may just wait forever on the delivery of the transcript, and now that transcript is the most important academic document for an alumnus trying to travel abroad, trying to further their education, or trying to get a standard job, many people have lost great life opportunities because of this.

The permanent solution to delayed transcript delivery and undelivered transcripts—which UNIBEN has done and it works—is to set-up a team (of at least ten members) to upload from papers to an electronic database all academic results one by one, from the very first results the school published to the very last one. This may take up to one year or more if each member of the 10-man team uploads ten people’s results per working day (making it 100 alumni’s results uploaded per working day, and 700 per working week), but the completion of this project would solve over 70% of the problems with the transcript processes. Another 20% of the problem would be solved if student copy transcripts are made available online for alumni to download themselves immediately after applying and paying online—this would reduce the loads of transcript staff of the Transcript Unit would have to work on, the focus would be on official transcripts now, thereby enhancing delivery speed.

The remaining 10% of the problem would be human errors in the process, uploading of subsequent results after the first back so we don’t have any more results that are only on papers, power supply, communication with applicants and receivers of transcripts. A land phone which will ring every time if called within working times and days, and a supportive staff would actually answer it every time it rings, this would solve a good part of these problems or at least give applicants insight into whether their application is getting the good attention or not. But since the school has the Nigerian excuses for functioning backwards in the processing of transcripts, it’s a show we are not ready to stop the culture of applicants needing to use a third-party in processing their transcripts if they are going to receive it early or ever. We cannot complain too much though, the existence of institutional and organizational failures like these is why solution-based brands like us survive. It’s disturbing, but it’s the Nigerian way.

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