However, this not to say it is a general practice by all private, federal and state universities in Nigeria, as we shall see in the cause of reading this post, Federal Universities that accept being selected as 2nd choice for UTME and Direct Entry candidates, State Universities that accept second choice candidates and also, private universities accepting 2nd choice candidates.

In the past, JAMB made provisions for 1st and 2nd choice for selecting preferred institutions. Candidates were made to select Federal universities as first choice while the state counterparts occupied second choice positions but that is no longer the case.

Today there are options for selecting three (3) institutions, first choice, second choice and third choice. Ideally, candidates are to select a federal university as first choice, state university as second choice and a polytechnic or college of education as third choice. Though Vice Chancellors of various state universities condemned this move claiming that the best brains and well behaved candidates go for Federal universities while the left students who most probably are not as smart as the later use them (state universities) as back up plans.

To avert the consequences of making either a state or Federal university a second choice, candidates have resorted to making their preferred choice of institution both first and second choice. Say for example a student that wants to register Delta state university as second choice and UNICAL as first choice would be forced to either make DELSU both first and second choice or make UNICAL both first and second choice since neither of them would accept being registered as second choice