By Ghazali Ibrahim 
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) may have no choice but to maintain the 140 general cut-off mark for admission into universities as over 1.5 million candidates failed to score above 200 in the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
Out of the 1.9 million candidates who sat for the Computer-Based Test (CBT) nationwide, only 420,415 candidates were able to cross the 200-mark threshold, representing just about 22% of the total candidates, according to official data released by JAMB on Monday.
A further breakdown of the results showed that only 4,756 candidates scored above 320, while 7,658 candidates scored between 300 and 319.
The board also disclosed that 40,247 underage candidates were permitted to participate in the examination to demonstrate what it described as “exceptional abilities.”
However, only 467 of them, representing 1.16%, met the benchmark considered as “exceptional” for the UTME. These candidates are expected to go through three more stages of assessment before being considered for tertiary education.
