The Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) has moved in to clear up confusion on cut-off points and cluster points as students who finished their KCSE exams wait to apply for courses in the coming days.
There has been a lot of confusion among the students on the meaning of cut-off points and cluster points, especially as they wait to apply for their courses.
According to KUCCPS, cluster points are the first thing taken into account when applying for a course. The cluster points are worked out using four main subjects, depending on the course a student wishes to apply for.
For instance, a student applying to study medicine needs to perform well in subjects such as Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics or Physics, and then in either English or Kiswahili. For law, a student needs to perform well in subjects such as English or Kiswahili, as well as their three best subjects.
These marks are worked out very carefully, even going up to a single decimal point, in order to clearly separate those who scored close marks. The cut-off points, on the other hand, come after students have applied.
KUCCPS states that a cut-off point is simply the points scored by the last student who succeeds in getting a place in a given course.
In determining this, all the students applying to join a given institution are sorted in the order of their highest to lowest cluster points. If a given course has limited spaces, such as 20, the student applying to the course who is at the bottom end determines the cut-off points.
Consequently, the cut-off points are dynamic in nature. They keep on changing depending on the number of students applying to join the respective courses and their performance in a given year.
The same course also has different cut-off points in different universities.
Courses such as medicine, engineering, and computer science tend to have high cut-off points.
KUCCPS has also reminded students that getting the cut-off points does not automatically qualify one to join their preferred institution.
As students wait to apply to their preferred courses, KUCCPS has advised students to keep checking the portal and understand how the system works.