Setting an English requirement that does not exclude good students

The English requirement is the single most consequential line in an institution's Vietnamese admissions policy, and it is often set by copying a peer institution.

Three things worth checking

• Which tests are actually available. Test availability and cost vary across Vietnam, and a requirement that only accepts one provider excludes applicants outside the largest cities.
• Whether you accept sub-scores or overall. A student with strong reading and weak speaking is a different admissions risk from the reverse, and an overall-only rule hides both.
• What the alternative route is. If an applicant is half a band short, is there a pre-sessional or conditional path, and is it described anywhere a family can find it?

The trade-off, stated plainly

A higher threshold reduces support cost and reduces applications. A lower one does the opposite. Neither is wrong; what is wrong is setting the number without knowing which effect you are buying, then being surprised by the result.

What to publish

The score, the accepted tests, the validity period, whether sub-scores apply, and the alternative route if the score is missed. Five lines. Institutions that publish all five get better-matched applications and fewer wasted assessments.

One quiet consequence

If your requirement is unusually high, agents will stop offering your programmes before they tell you why. The volume falls; the reason does not arrive.

Making requirements findable: Vietnamese Website for Your Institution →