University applications often open during April of each year, after the first academic quarter has been completed. As such, if a student decides to apply early, they will often only be required to present their final grade 11 marks and, in some cases, their most recently received term marks and their National Benchmark Tests (NBT) results.
Once these marks, along with any other necessary documentation are received by the university, they might follow up by issuing the student with a conditional offer of study.
However, students should note that despite the conditional offer of study, their place at the university is not secured yet, and can still be revoked based on their final results.
This begs the question as to how a university might receive a student’s final grades in order to come to a decision to either revoke, or confirm the offer made to them. To answer that, one must first understand how matric final results work.
Although the rest of the year operates the same for all grades, with students receiving their report cards at the end of every term, matric final results are issued differently.
The main difference comes in the fact that, instead of receiving a report card, students will receive an SMS containing their final results, which are linked to the student’s assigned examination number.
Only after they have received their SMS results and can confirm that they have met the criteria to pass, will they be able to collect their National Senior Certificate (NSC). This SMS result is often sent in the January following the student’s matric year, long after other students have received their marks.
Applicants will typically be informed during their application, whether or not they will have to submit their own matric results.
In many cases, universities will receive an applicant’s final results directly from the examination board through which their examinations were completed, but if stated otherwise, students might have to send their results in for themselves upon receipt of their results.
Therefore, considering that final results are only released in January, students will typically only have a confirmed outcome for their application at the beginning of the year following their matric year.
If a student who completed their matric at a public institution has not yet been registered to receive their results via SMS, they can do so through either of these options:
- Sending their ID number and exam number to 45856
- Dialling *120*45856# and entering their ID number and examination number
Furthermore, if a student completed their matric at an IEB school, they can send the same information through to the SMS number 35135 instead.
