If you applied to Rev. Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu University, Makurdi, still widely known by its former name, Benue State University or simply BSU, then you should already know that the registration window for this year’s Post-UTME and Direct Entry screening has closed. I want to walk you through exactly what happened, what the final deadline actually was, and more importantly, what you need to be doing right now if you were part of this admission cycle.
A Quick Note on the Name Change
Before we go further, let me clear up something that trips up a lot of candidates every year. Benue State University was officially renamed Rev. Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu University, Makurdi, commonly abbreviated as MOAUM, in 2025, in honour of the university’s founding governor and Catholic priest, the late Moses Adasu. The institution is still frequently referred to as BSU in casual conversation, in older search results, and even in some of its own informal communications, so if you have seen both names used interchangeably, that is entirely expected. They refer to the same university.
What Actually Happened With the Registration Deadline
Here is where things get genuinely important for you to understand clearly. The Post-UTME and Direct Entry screening exercise for the 2026/2027 academic session originally opened on Monday, 13th July 2026, with an initial closing date set for Wednesday, 12th August 2026.
However, the university subsequently issued a formal extension notice, stating that due to certain exigencies, the closing date was pushed back to Monday, 31st August 2026. That extended date became the true final deadline for this year’s exercise. If you have seen conflicting information online citing 12th August as the closing date, understand that this was the original deadline before the university extended it, and the actual final cutoff was 31st August 2026.
Given where we are now, this registration window has already closed. If you completed your application before 31st August, you are in good standing and should now be focused on the next stages of the admission process, which I will walk you through shortly. If you missed this window entirely, I will address your options honestly toward the end of this piece.
Who Was Eligible to Register
The screening exercise was open to two groups of candidates. UTME candidates who sat for the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and selected MOAUM as their first choice institution were eligible, alongside Direct Entry candidates who made the same first choice selection. As with virtually every Nigerian university admission process, candidates who had originally chosen a different institution needed to formally change their first choice to MOAUM on the JAMB portal before this registration window closed, since the university has consistently required first choice status as a non negotiable eligibility condition.
The Cut-Off Marks You Should Know
MOAUM applies a tiered cut-off structure that varies depending on the faculty and programme a candidate is applying to, and this is worth understanding clearly even now, because it affects how your application will ultimately be assessed.
Candidates applying to programmes within the Faculties of Arts, Education, Environmental Sciences, Management Sciences, most Sciences excluding Microbiology, Social Sciences, and Technology and Industrial Studies needed a minimum UTME score of 150.
A higher threshold applied to the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Architecture, and specific science programmes including B.Sc. Human Anatomy, Human Physiology, and Microbiology, where candidates needed a minimum score of 180.
Programmes such as B.Sc. Medical Laboratory Science, Radiography, and Radiation Science required a minimum of 200, while the university’s most competitive programmes, including Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, Doctor of Pharmacy, and Bachelor of Law, sat at the top of the scale, generally requiring scores in the range of 220 and above, depending on the specific programme and admission year.
Beyond the UTME score itself, candidates also needed five relevant O’Level credit passes, including Mathematics and English Language, obtained at not more than two sittings, and these results needed to be properly uploaded to the JAMB portal to be considered valid for the screening process.
What You Should Do Now If You Registered
If you completed your registration, paid the required N2,000 screening fee, and printed your application form before the 31st August deadline, here is what deserves your attention now.
Log into the MOAUM admissions portal regularly to check for updates on your screening status. The university has consistently urged registered candidates to monitor the portal closely for further instructions rather than assuming the process ends the moment registration closes.
Confirm that your O’Level results are correctly uploaded and verified on the JAMB portal, since the university has been explicit that candidates whose results are not properly uploaded there risk not being considered for admission at all, regardless of how well they performed in the screening exercise itself.
Watch for admission list announcements, which typically follow the close of screening by several weeks as the university processes applications, verifies documentation, and finalizes its selections across the various faculties and cut-off tiers described above.
Keep your payment receipt and printed application form somewhere safe, since these documents frequently become necessary again during physical verification, clearance, or if any question arises about your registration later in the process.
What If You Missed the Deadline Entirely
I want to be honest with you if you are reading this and realizing, perhaps for the first time, that you never completed your registration before 31st August. Your options at this point are genuinely limited, but there are still a few things worth doing rather than simply giving up on the session.
Contact the university’s admissions office directly, whether through the official MOAUM website contact channels or by phone, to ask whether any further extension or supplementary registration window might still be considered. Universities occasionally open brief supplementary windows, particularly for programmes that remain undersubscribed after the main screening period closes, though this should never be assumed and must be confirmed through official channels only.
If no further opportunity exists at MOAUM for this session, consider whether your JAMB registration allows you to explore other institutions whose Post-UTME or supplementary admission windows might still be open. Missing one university’s deadline does not have to mean missing an entire admission year, provided you act quickly to understand what other pathways remain available to you.
The Lesson Worth Carrying Forward
There is a pattern I want to draw your attention to, because I have seen it repeat itself across dozens of Nigerian universities every single admission cycle. Deadlines get announced, then extended, then sometimes extended again, and candidates who rely on the assumption that another extension will always come eventually find themselves genuinely locked out when an extension does not materialize.
The safer approach, always, is to treat the first announced deadline as the real deadline and complete your registration well ahead of it, treating any subsequent extension as a bonus rather than a plan. Whether you made it into this window comfortably, scrambled in during the extension period, or missed it entirely, let this experience shape how you approach the next deadline you face, at MOAUM or wherever your academic path takes you next.
Stay close to the official MOAUM website and verified communication channels in the coming weeks for updates on your screening results and the release of admission lists.