When an institution starts giving admission, it is usually done in a particular order, which can either be alphabetically, departmentally, or randomly. This is the same reason why Mr A might see AIP on his JAMB caps or admitted on his school portal before Mr B.
As an aspirant, having a proper understanding of how this order works will really save you from panicking unnecessarily. But unfortunately, most students don’t have an understanding of this, which leads them to ask the question, “Is admission given alphabetically, departmentally, or randomly?”
Are you also one of those students asking such a question? If yes, then you are at the right place because in today’s article, I will be providing a well-detailed answer to that question. But before we proceed, I would like to explain what alphabetically, departmentally, or randomly means in admissions.
What Does Alphabetically Mean In Admission?
This is simply when admission is released in alphabetical order by their last name or surname, from A to Z. It makes it easier to locate specific names on the list.
For example, if Ogazie Chinonso, Eze David and Balogun Micheal are to be admitted to LASU in an alphabetical order, Balogun Micheal will be admitted first, followed by Eze David, then Ogazie Chinonso.
What Does Departmentally Mean In Admission?
This is simply when admission is released by courses, and within each course, it generally follows an alphabetical order.
For example, if an institution is giving admission departmentally, they will generally start with courses that begin with A (Accounting, Agriculture, etc.) before moving to the other courses that begin with the next letter B (Biochemistry, Chemistry and more). And it will keep on going like that till it gets to courses that begin with Z.
What Does Randomly Mean In Admission?
This is when admission is given without any specific order. They can choose to admit an aspirant from the faculty of science, then accounting next, or even admit an aspirant whose name starts with O.
So when admission is given randomly, it means it’s not based on department or alphabetical arrangement. Now that we have understood what alphabetically, departmentally and randomly mean in admission, let’s then proceed to answer the question “Is Admission Given Alphabetically, Departmentally, or Randomly?” which is our main focus of this article.
Is Admission Given Alphabetically, Departmentally, or Randomly?
Well, the answer to this question depends on if you are referring to admission on JAMB caps or the school portal. It also depends on the particular batch or list your choice of institution is releasing.
So to break this down and also make sure you understand properly, I will be splitting this section into two. The first will be telling you the order in which admission is given on the JAMB portal, while the second will be telling you the order in which admission is given on the school portal.
This way you won’t mix things up and also get confused. So without wasting much time, let’s proceed.
1 JAMB Portal
Generally, admission is released on the JAMB portal departmentally. This means candidates whose choice of course starts with A (e.g., Agriculture, Accounting, etc.) will be the ones to first see AIP on their JAMB caps before other candidates whose choice of course starts with B and more.
Some of you might want to know why it is like this. Well, let me break it down for you. When your school starts compiling the list of candidates they wish to admit, they tend to do it in an organised manner.
If it’s done departmentally, the list will contain all the departments starting with A down to Z, in which each will also include the names of students they wish to admit under that department.
So after the list has been compiled, your school will send it to JAMB for upload. Now the same order your school sends it is the same way JAMB will upload it on their portal also.
And since the list was ordered departmentally, JAMB will also upload it departmentally, starting with departments that begin with A before moving to Z, in which the process will take some time. If a department has been uploaded successfully, lucky candidates whose names were on the list will immediately see AIP on his or her JAMB caps.
This AIP simply means JAMB is currently reviewing your details, and if it’s authentic, the caps of all the candidates whose names were on the list will change to ADMITTED, still following the departmental order. Sometimes the list might not even reach Z; they might send A-Q first and then S-Z after.
So in essence, the reason why admission is released departmentally on JAMB caps is because of the departmental order in which your school sent the list to JAMB.
But take note, admission is generally released departmentally only for the first batch or merit list. Any other list after that, like the supplementary list, VC list and more, is usually released randomly.
This means after the first batch or merit list has been released, an aspirant of Zoology might see AIP on his/her JAMB caps before an aspirant of Biochemistry, regardless of whether B comes before Z.
The reason why it is like this is because the first batch contains the list of candidates who merit the admission. After they have released the list, some departments would have reached their quota already, and their next list will just be to fill up the remaining gap in departments with space.
So what institutions do is that they compile a list of candidates in any department that’s ready in no specific order and send the list to JAMB. JAMB will then upload it on their portal, and candidates in the list under that department will see AIP immediately.
So even if the Agriculture and Zoology departments aren’t filled up yet and the list they have for Zoology is complete but Agriculture isn’t, they will compile the names of candidates under Zoology they wish to admit and send it to JAMB like that for upload.
This is the reason why you will see some aspirants complain after the merit list has been released that their friend has seen AIP before them, thinking maybe the admission is still given departmentally. That’s just how it works.
So how about admission on the school portal? Let’s find out.
2 School Portal
The order in which institutions give admission on their portal depends on the institution itself. Some do it departmentally, alphabetically, randomly, or better still, in the same order in which they sent the list to JAMB.
But one thing about school admission is that if they start, almost every aspirant who has seen AIP/ADMITTED on his/her JAMB portal will see admission on his/her school portal together. It’s just that the order they used is what you can’t really know.
So in conclusion, JAMB admission is given departmentally only in the first batch or merit list, in which other lists after that are released randomly. While school admission is released based on how the school wants it. Thank you for reading this article.
