Here are some facts I never heard from my elders as a Jambite but I saw them with my eyes

The school

Every accredited institution is a good school. It is commonly perceived that some higher schools in Nigeria are better than others and will therefore produce better graduates. This has not been verified by anybody as at the time of writing this so we should therefore believe that such perceptions are only boastful claims by those who have a link with them. All schools operating with the accreditation of the NUC and other regulatory bodies are good. It is left for the student to make the best of the resources provided by the management of the Alma Mata he or she selected in personal development. The quality of a graduate a school produces depend mainly on the attitude of him or her toward study and not the believed quality of the school.
The statement that all Nigerian schools are equal in quality does not remove the fact that the management and operations of some of them appear to be more organized than the other. And organized school is one that meets it calendar and has put the basic learning and research facilities in place.
Prospective candidates should be given a free will to make a choice but must physically move to the campus to investigate and verify that the real nature of things in the school is acceptable to him or her.

Every school offer their accredited courses correctly. it is also commonly perceived that some school may not be capable of offering a kind of courses due to her nature e.g a school of Agriculture offering a course in the field of business or core engineering. This is a wrong notion as the governing body that oversees higher schools e.g. NUC permits it. Every school that has been accredited to teach and research in a specific course has been found capable and therefore can do well. Candidates should not just doubt the ability of a school in offering a course but may rather go visiting the department to see for him or herself

Some courses have different duration in a different school. [/b]Though the study content and stress area of same courses are the same in the various schools, different schools have different approach to teaching them. Some courses that take four years in the regular university may take up to five in a technical university. Candidates applying for a course should seek to know the duration of the course directly before making choice of any institution.

[b]Some schools are more preferred than the other. This fact makes a very useful tip for a strategist to win the competition into the Nigerian University. More preference have gone to some higher institution over the other for certain reasons like proximity to a large urban center e.g Lagos, years of existence, amount in fees, quality of academic structures e.t.c. During selection of institution of choice, the candidate or course advisor must seek the latest data on the preference of each school over the other before concluding on the institution to select.
Tip: The higher the number applying for a school the harder it will be to get admitted into that school
Hint: the JAMB UTME website provides a handy statistics of the number of students that have applied for a school. This table could be used to understand the popular preference of schools

Some schools tend to be faster academically by nature. The nature of the governing body of a school and her philosophies reflects her operations. Some schools strictly follow their academic calendar and complete a session in time. This advantage is important to the prospective student as it will ensure no time is wasted unnecessarily in his or her schooling year.
Tip: schools that are known to be very fast are more likely to have departments that are left behind in academic calendar thereby causing internal problems in them. Candidates applying for these schools must verify the place of the department to the school’s academic calendar

Some schools are more expensive to study in. Schools that have campuses in areas that have a higher cost of living are relatively expensive to school in. The host community is made to provide goods and services that the school cannot readily provide to the camping staff and student. The students are sometimes exploited by them in accommodation prices and many other services. The student union government and some other activist associations have in the past attempted cushion this effect by regulating prices of goods and services but this is only limited to the confines of the institution.



The Department

Some department within an institution may not reflect the perceived image of the school. This is one fact that must be noted before selecting a school. Some schools in Nigeria are noted for their glory but some of the departments in this very institution may have been in turmoil. Occurrences like fire outbreak, mass resignation of teaching staff and over-crowding due to admitting too many student into a department may adversely disrupt academics in the department and reduce the standards of it. Becoming an undergraduate in this department is sometimes regretful as students fall victims of the existing problems and hardly graduate with ready result.

Some department in a specific school tend to grade higher. Candidates must wake to the fact and be aware that the average attitude of the teaching staff of every department in a school in grading students’ performance may vary greatly. Some departments have benevolent lectures that are fatherly to their students and therefore can afford to give excellent grades for little effort made. This piece of information is ideal for those who have accepted to openly choose from between a group of courses in a specific institution. The prospective student should make enquiries amongst senior students of each department on the nature of their departmental lecturers in grading academic performances.

Some departments are more expensive to study in. The amount of money needed to successfully complete a course (all thing being equal) varies. Courses that are studied with a lot of laboratory, field or studio works and other practical exercises are relatively more expensive than whole theoretical courses. The materials and instruments used in this exercises are usually finance by the students and they are usually expensive.

Some departments are actually located away from the main campus. [/b]Candidate selecting a department in a school because of its location must be sure that the department is located at his very campus of target. Some schools have campuses in various location and therefore have their departments scattered amongst their campuses. It will do the candidate good to verify the department is at a location that is still convenient for his or her study.

[b]Some departments with backlog problems will not admit in the current year despite the applications. Due to certain internal problems, some departments fall behind the academic calendar and find it hard to meet up. This compounds more problems in processing of students’ current the performance and lead to a backlog of academic work to be done. They sometimes find it difficult to move students ahead to start a new academic session and may be forced to give up one year.