The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced a significant policy shift that will see each candidate’s ranking position printed on their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result slip.
This new feature will apply to all 1,905,539 candidates that participated in the 2025 UTME.
Prof. Is-haq Oloyode, JAMB Registrar, announced this on Tuesday during his presentation at the 2025 policy conference in Abuja.
He stated that the measure was intended to provide more context to raw results, prevent the celebration of so-called top scorers without regard for their relative performance, and assist educational institutions in making more informed admission decisions.
According to him, by revealing a candidate’s national rating, universities and other higher education institutions can now evaluate not just the score but also the applicant’s position among their peers.
This change, he said, will also reduce the chances of fraud and impersonation because it will be more difficult for candidates to parade fake or inflated scores when their exact rank is visible, while also aligning with JAMB’s statutory role as a ranking and fairness agency.
A 370-point score in the 2025 UTME places a candidate 16th out of nearly two million candidates. A score of 320 ranks 5,806, whilst 250 ranks 107,819.
A score of 200 places a candidate at 533,805, while 180 ranks at 948,026. Lower scores of 140, 120, and 100 are listed as 1,855,607, 1,900,872, and 1,903,661, respectively.
The Board noted that the new ranking system is intended to discourage a fixation with raw numbers and instead focus on the competitiveness of each performance. It will also help institutions screen and choose the most qualified individuals, particularly for highly competitive courses and schools.
“Candidates ranking position will be indicated on the result slip for each candidate. This will help the institutions determine the quality of candidates being admitted.
“It will also discourage candidates who parade fake scores as one of the best,” the JAMB boss stated.
