The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced a major policy change that will see the ranking position of each candidate printed on their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) result slip.
This new feature will apply to all 1,905,539 candidates who sat for the 2025 UTME.
JAMB Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyode, disclosed this on Tuesday in his presentation at the 2025 policy meeting in Abuja.
He said the move was aimed at providing better context to raw scores, curbing the celebration of so-called high scorers without considering their relative performance, and helping tertiary institutions make more informed admission decisions.
According to him, by indicating a candidate’s national ranking, universities and other higher institutions can now assess not just the score but the standing of each applicant among their peers.
This change, he said will also reduce the chances of fraud and impersonation, as it will be more difficult for candidates to parade fake or inflated scores when their exact rank is visible, noting that it also aligns with JAMB’s statutory role as not just an examination body, but a ranking and fairness agency.
For the 2025 UTME, a candidate who scored 370 is ranked 16th among the nearly two million candidates. A score of 320 is ranked 5,806 while 250 is ranked 107,819.
A score of 200 places a candidate at position 533,805, and 180 ranks at 948,026. Lower scores such as 140, 120, and 100 are ranked at 1,855,607; 1,900,872; and 1,903,661, respectively.
The Board explained that the new ranking system is expected to discourage the obsession with raw scores alone and shift focus to the competitiveness of each result. It will also assist institutions in screening and selecting the best-qualified candidates, especially in 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 score as one of the best,” the JAMB boss stated.
