The Department of Education and Training (DET) of Ho Chi Minh City said that the public 10th grade entrance exam for the 2025-2026 school year has 76,435 students registered to take the exam. The city currently has more than 88,000 grade 9 students studying at public secondary schools, about 12,000 students who do not register to take the exam.
The total enrollment target of public high schools this year is 70,070 students, reaching an enrollment rate of 97% (in 2024 it will be 65%). Thus, only more than 6,000 students have fallen out of this competition this year, a huge decrease compared to previous years when about 20,000 students fell out of the competition.
According to statistics, the employment rate of each high school this year has mostly decreased. It was recorded that 64 schools had a difficulty rate of over 1 (this number was 77 schools last year) and 45 schools had a difficulty rate of less than 1 (ie the number of candidates applying for admission to the school was lower than the enrollment quota).
Notably, in this year's competition rate, there are groups of schools that regularly have high competition rates every year such as: Ho Thi Bi High School, Nguyen Thuong Hien High School, Gia Dinh High School... that have been replaced.
The group of top schools with annual admission scores also has a relatively low admission rate, such as: Bui Thi Xuan High School has an admission rate of 1/1.55; Ho Chi Minh City Boarding School for the Gifted is 1/1.58; Mac Dinh Chi High School is 1/1.68... These are the high schools in the top 10 schools with the highest admission scores in 2024.
In the specialized block alone, statistics show that 5,550 candidates registered to take the entrance exam to two specialized schools Le Hong Phong and Tran Dai Nghia.
Compared to last year, this figure decreased by nearly 2,700. Part of the reason is that from the 2025-2026 school year, high schools often no longer organize specialized classes.
Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted has a rolling ratio of 1/4.88 with 3,926 applications, the enrollment quota is 805.
Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted has 1,624 applications, with an enrollment quota of 455 students. The fighting rate is 1/3.57.
Mr. Hoang Dang, a teacher in Ho Chi Minh City, commented that with the fluctuation in the admission rate, especially when the enrollment rate increases while the number of students decreases, the admission score will decrease significantly, especially in the middle and lower groups.
"In the top school group, although some schools have a relatively low competition rate, students who register to take the exam in this group will often have good or better academic performance, so the possibility of the benchmark score will not fluctuate much," said Mr. Hoang Dang.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training said that it plans to organize 158 exam scores with 4,424 exam rooms; mobilize 13,272 teachers to review the exam and 2,070 service staff.
The judging work is expected to take place from June 8 to June 25.
Candidates will take 3 subjects: Math, Literature (120 minutes/subject) and Foreign Language (90 minutes, according to foreign language 1 being studied at school). Candidates who register for a specialized school or integrated class will take an additional exam in a specialized subject or equivalent integrated (150 minutes).
