Ho Chi Minh City National University denies mandatory competency assessment exam reports

Ho Chi Minh City National University confirms students can still apply to its eight member universities in 2026 without taking the competency assessment exam.

Ho Chi Minh City National University (VNUHCM) clarified on the afternoon of 14/12 that its competency assessment exam will not be mandatory for 2026 admissions. This statement came amidst widespread confusion among prospective students following earlier announcements about changes to the university's admission process.

Just three days prior, VNUHCM's provisional 2026 admission plan indicated a primary reliance on a comprehensive admission method. This method combines three components: competency assessment scores, high school graduation exam scores, and academic transcripts, with competency assessment scores being the dominant factor.

Many prospective students interpreted this announcement as making the competency assessment exam a compulsory requirement, a departure from previous options to apply using only high school graduation exam scores or other methods.

VNUHCM denied this interpretation, explaining that prioritizing a comprehensive admission method is not a sudden shift or an abandonment of existing admission pathways. Instead, it represents a standardized framework designed to streamline, standardize, and simplify the admission process. The university emphasized that each member university retains autonomy to select or combine the three score components to align with its specific educational programs. The underlying principle is to establish clear weightings and conversion methods, ensuring fairness for all applicants.

This comprehensive admission method draws from the experience of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, which has applied a similar approach since 2022. Under this system, applicants can use either their high school graduation exam scores or competency assessment results, which the university then converts using its specific formula to calculate a composite score.

In 2025, VNUHCM admitted over 25,700 students. Nearly 14,500 of them, representing 56,32% of total admissions, enrolled via the competency assessment method (V-ACT exam). This marks the highest percentage for this method since 2018.

Beyond the V-ACT scores, member universities also offer direct admission, priority admission, and admission based on high school graduation exam scores.