Universities consider early admission using a variety of qualifications including international standardized tests, domestic standardized tests, and foreign language certificates.

Currently, there is no distinction between international and domestic certificates when considering school admission. Normally, certificates will be converted to the same scale on a 30-point scale.

Despite the equal role in university admissions, exam fees for certificates have a huge discrepancy.

SAT is a standardized American aptitude test, used by about 20 universities in Vietnam for admission.

According to the latest announcement from the College Board - the SAT testing unit - the SAT exam fee from August 2024 in the US is 68 USD. International candidates will have to pay an additional fee of 43 USD.

Thus, in Vietnam, the SAT exam fee this year is 111 USD, equivalent to 2.8 million VND.

In addition, candidates will incur additional fees when special needs arise, such as: Cancellation fee, change of exam schedule 29 USD (733,000 VND); urgent result notification fee in case candidates need early scores 31 USD (783,000 VND).

Similar to the SAT is the ACT. This American standardized test is not as popular in Vietnam as the SAT but is used by over 20 top universities.

The cost of the ACT is nearly twice that of the SAT and varies depending on the needs of the test taker.

Specifically, the basic ACT test without essay is 181.5 USD (4.58 million VND). The ACT test with essay is 206.5 USD (5.2 million VND). The separate essay test fee is 25 USD (632,000 VND).

The ACT fee is equivalent to the TOEFL iBT.

According to the announcement of ETS - the unit that tests the TOEFL iBT test - the fee for this year's certification exam is 200 USD (5 million VND).

Candidates who register urgently (within 7 days of the exam date) will have to pay an additional 40 USD (1 million VND). The fee for changing the exam schedule is 60 USD (1.5 million VND).

The IELTS English certificate costs VND 4.66 million, applicable for both paper-based and computer-based tests.

The fee to retake 1 skill is 2.94 million VND.

This fee applies until December 2024.

Among domestic certificates, the highest fee is the VSTEP English certificate with about 1.8 million VND depending on the organizing unit.

At the University of Foreign Languages ​​(Hanoi National University), Foreign Trade University, and Hanoi Pedagogical University, the exam fee for independent candidates is 1.8 million VND. Thai Nguyen University alone charges 1.2 million VND.

For candidates who are students of the school, the schools collect from 800,000 VND to 1.2 million VND.

Similarly, the V-SAT certificate also has different fees, depending on each university. Thai Nguyen University, Banking Academy, Can Tho University charges 120,000 VND/exam. Saigon University, Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City charges 115,000 VND/exam.

The HSA certificate - the Hanoi National University's competency assessment test - is a popular certificate used at 97 universities - with an attractive fee of VND500,000. Meanwhile, the similar test of Ho Chi Minh City National University (APT certificate) has a fee of VND300,000.

Fees are an important factor affecting candidates' choices during each university entrance exam. Most students in suburban areas choose "domestic" certificates such as HSA, APT, TSA. Meanwhile, students in big cities choose IELTS, SAT, TOEFL iBT...