Students can now print offer letters directly from website

By KAREN CHAPMAN

source: The Star 19/6/2007

PUTRAJAYA: Students who have obtained places at a public university can now print the offer letters direct from the institution’s website. 

Previously they had to wait for the letters through the post, leading to problems when these arrived late. 

Higher Education Management Department director-general Prof Datuk Dr Hassan Said said he had directed universities to send out offer letters from today but students also had the option of downloading them. 

“This will enable those living in the peninsula and accepted into universities in Sabah and Sarawak, or vice-versa, more time to prepare,” he said at a press conference yesterday to announce this year’s public university admission figures. 

Prof Hassan said out of the 68,110 applicants to public universities this year, 53,400 had the minimum qualification of a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 2.00. 

“From these, 40,116 have been accepted for the 2007/08 academic year, a slight increase over last year’s figure of 40,016,” he said.  

Of the total accepted, 24,924 are bumiputras (62.1%), 12,745 Chinese (31.8%) and 2,447 Indians (6.1%). 

Places offered for medicine and dentistry remain the same as last year, at 925 and 205 respectively, with 280 for pharmacy this year, compared with 285 last year. 

On the cut-off point for entry into medicine, Prof Hassan said the ministry had not had time to analyse the figures as it had only completed the selection process on Sunday.  

“The cut-off point is high. From my personal observation, it is those with around 95 or 96 marks who got into medicine, but this is only an estimate,” he said. 

He said that since last year, entry into public universities had been based on both academic achievement (90%) and co-curriculum involvement (10%). 

This year, however, the co-curriculum marks came from the Education Ministry, not from what students themselves had input when applying, he added. 

According to him, there were candidates with high CGPA scores who did not get their first choice as they had low marks for co-curriculum involvement.  

“Students have to be wise when choosing their courses and the universities,” he said. 

On candidates with high marks who had not obtained courses of their choice, Prof Hassan said the ministry had tried to offer them options similar to the ones they had asked for. 

The ministry has also set up a counter at its premises here where students can check the status of their application or receive counselling up to June 29.