85 juvenile applicants who will be less than 16 by September 2025 have been admitted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) following what it called a “rigorous and comprehensive screening” in accordance with its extraordinary admission criteria.
According to Fabian Benjamin, the Board’s Public Communication Advisor, the decision was made in accordance with international best practices, which consider underage admissions as the exception rather than the rule.
According to Benjamin, “the 85 candidates were determined to be qualified after a thorough evaluation and have been duly notified to proceed to their respective institutions to complete the admission process and print their individual JAMB admission letters.”
2,031,133 applicants took the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). 41,027 of these applied for consideration under the underage category.
According to JAMB, 599 of those who received a minimum score of 80% on the UTME were examined further, including their post-UTME performance and school certificate verification.
Only 85 of the 182 applicants who were ultimately shortlisted for the last round of interviews and paperwork passed.
Any of the 182 finalists who missed the final interview due to legitimate circumstances were instructed by the Board to file a formal request under the “2025 Underage Complaint” category on the JAMB Support Ticketing System.
JAMB promised that “such complaints will be reviewed individually and treated strictly on merit.”
Additionally, candidates who received a UTME score of 320 or higher but were rejected for neglecting to upload their O-Level results have been granted a two-day grace period, which ends on Wednesday, October 29, 2025, to finish the process and notify the Board via the same mechanism.
JAMB reaffirmed its commitment to academic integrity and stated that its admissions procedure will continue to be “credible, transparent, and inclusive, while upholding the standards of tertiary education in Nigeria.”
