If you're applying to a South African public university, there's a good chance the National Benchmark Test will show up somewhere in your application checklist. The confusing part is that not every university uses it the same way, and not every faculty at the same university treats it the same either. Some institutions treat the national benchmark test as a hard requirement before your application is even considered. Others only ask for it once you've already received a conditional offer, using it purely to decide which first-year courses you'll be placed into.

This guide walks through which universities currently require the NBT, how each one tends to use the results, and what UJ applicants specifically need to know since that search comes up constantly. We'll also cover what happens if your target university doesn't require it at all, and how to avoid wasting a test sitting on a score nobody asked for.

It's worth saying upfront: there's no single national rulebook that lists every faculty's exact policy in one place, and requirements genuinely do change between intake years. What we can do is give you a reliable starting map, show you the patterns that tend to hold across most institutions, and point you to exactly where to confirm the details for your own shortlist before you register or skip the test.

The NBT exists because a matric certificate alone doesn't tell a university everything it needs to know about how ready you are for degree-level academic work. The test measures academic literacy, quantitative literacy, and mathematics separately from your school subjects, which gives admissions offices a second, standardized data point that's comparable across every applicant regardless of which high school they attended.

Universities use that data point in two very different ways. Some use it as a gatekeeper: your score contributes directly to whether you get an offer at all, alongside your Grade 11 results or matric average. Others use it purely for placement, meaning you're already admitted and the NBT just determines whether you go straight into mainstream first-year courses or start with an extended, foundation-phase pathway that gives you extra academic support in your first year or two.

Because the two uses look so different from the student's side, it's worth checking not just whether a university requires the NBT, but which of these two roles it plays for your specific degree.

There's also a third, quieter reason universities lean on the NBT: matric results vary in how they're marked and moderated from school to school, and provincial averages can shift year to year. A standardized test sat under the same conditions nationwide gives admissions committees a way to compare applicants on equal footing, which matters most in oversubscribed programs where hundreds of qualified matriculants are competing for a small number of first-year seats.

A wide group of South African public universities either require or strongly recommend the NBT as part of undergraduate admissions. That group has historically included the University of Cape Town, the University of the Witwatersrand, Stellenbosch University, Rhodes University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the University of Pretoria, the University of the Free State, North-West University, the University of the Western Cape, and Nelson Mandela University, among others. Several faculties at the University of Johannesburg also request NBT scores, particularly for competitive programs like health sciences, engineering, and some commerce degrees.

What's important to understand is that this isn't a fixed, permanently frozen list. Requirements shift by faculty and by admissions cycle, and a university that requires the NBT for a Bachelor of Commerce might not require it at all for a Bachelor of Arts. The safest approach is to treat any general list, including this one, as a starting point and confirm directly with the specific faculty you're applying to using the official nbt resources before you skip or book a sitting.

You'll also notice that some universities only require the NBT from applicants who don't meet a certain matric average outright. In other words, a student comfortably above the minimum admission point score for a program might be admitted without ever needing an NBT result, while a student closer to the cutoff gets asked to sit the test so the faculty has extra information to make a fair call. That's another reason blanket lists can be misleading if you read them without checking your own numbers against the faculty's published entry criteria first.

Searches for "UJ NBT" are common because the University of Johannesburg's policy is more selective than most, which makes it genuinely confusing to figure out from the outside. Rather than requiring the NBT university-wide, UJ typically asks for it only from applicants to specific faculties, most often health sciences and some competitive engineering or commerce programs, while other faculties admit purely on matric results.

If you're applying to UJ, the fastest way to remove the guesswork is to check the specific requirements listed for your chosen faculty on UJ's own admissions pages rather than assuming the rule that applies to a friend's course also applies to yours. Requirements can also change between application cycles, so re-check even if you wrote the NBT for a previous UJ application.

If UJ does list the NBT for your program, you'll want to book your nbt registration early, since popular test centres and dates fill up in the months leading into the main application windows.

A useful habit for UJ applicants specifically is to compare the requirements listed on the faculty page against the requirements listed on your specific qualification's page, since UJ structures some programs under joint faculties where the rule can differ even between two closely related degrees. When in doubt, a short email to UJ's admissions office asking directly about your exact qualification code will save you more time than searching general forums for other applicants' experiences, since individual accounts can be outdated by the time you read them.

It helps to think of NBT requirements on a spectrum rather than a simple yes-or-no rule. On one end you have faculties where the test is compulsory and missing it means your application can't be processed at all. On the other end, you have programs where the test is optional, sometimes described as "recommended," and choosing not to write it has no real effect on your outcome.

The middle of that spectrum is where most confusion happens. A university might not require the NBT for admission but still request it once you've accepted a place, purely so academic advisors can plan your first-year timetable around whichever support courses you might need. If you skip the test assuming it's optional and later discover your faculty wanted it for placement, you can end up scrambling to book a late sitting during a busy academic term.

There's a practical downside to sitting in that gray middle zone unprepared for too long: extended-curriculum placements are usually decided before the academic year starts, so a late NBT result can mean you miss the window for that extra support track even if you'd have qualified for it. Writing the test earlier rather than later gives your university more time to place you correctly, whichever pathway that ends up being.

The single most reliable way to confirm whether your target university requires the NBT is to go to that specific faculty's official admissions page, not a general university homepage or a forum thread from a previous applicant. Search the faculty name plus "NBT" or "national benchmark test" and look for a requirements or prerequisites section, since that's where universities usually spell out whether the test is compulsory, recommended, or unused for that program.

If you can't find a clear answer, contact the faculty's admissions office directly rather than guessing. It's a five-minute email or phone call that can save you from either missing a hard requirement or wasting a test sitting you never needed. Once you know the answer, you can plan your apply nbt timeline around your other application deadlines instead of treating it as an afterthought.

Once you've confirmed the test is required somewhere in your application list, the preparation side is fairly straightforward: the NBT rewards comfort with reading comprehension under time pressure and basic quantitative reasoning far more than it rewards memorized formulas. Working through timed practice sets is the most efficient way to get used to the pacing, since the test format itself is unfamiliar to most first-time writers even when the underlying skills aren't.

A common mistake is treating NBT prep like matric revision, going deep into content review instead of practicing the actual question formats. Because the test measures how you apply literacy and numeracy skills rather than subject content, spending your limited prep time on realistic nbt past papers tends to move your score more than re-reading textbook chapters does.

It also helps to separate your prep time between the two skill areas rather than treating the test as one big blur. Academic literacy rewards fast, structured reading, so practicing how to skim a passage for its main argument before diving into the detail questions saves time you'll need elsewhere in the paper. Quantitative literacy rewards comfort translating word problems into simple calculations quickly, which usually improves fastest through repeated timed sets rather than slow, careful review sessions with no clock running.

Your NBT results also outlive a single application cycle. Because scores typically stay valid for a few years, a strong result from an earlier sitting can still support a later application if your plans change, whether you're switching universities, adding a second choice degree, or applying for a bursary that requests standardized academic testing data alongside your matric certificate.

That's part of why advisors generally recommend writing the test even in borderline cases where it's only "recommended" rather than compulsory. A single half-day test sitting is a small cost against the flexibility it buys you if your course preferences shift between now and when offers go out.

This matters more than it might seem when application deadlines are tight. Students sometimes decide late in the year to add a second or third university to their list, often after a first-choice offer doesn't come through the way they expected. Having an existing, valid NBT score already on file means you can submit a complete application to that new option immediately, instead of losing weeks waiting for a fresh test date and result turnaround while other applicants without that delay move ahead of you in the queue.

If you're still unsure where you stand, the most efficient next step is to pull up the exact list of degrees you're considering and check each one individually against its faculty's published entry requirements. Universities update these requirements periodically, so even if a friend or family member wrote the same test for the same university a year or two ago, don't assume their experience still applies to your intake.

Once you've confirmed which of your target programs need the NBT, the registration process itself is quick, and you can find a full walkthrough on how to register for nbt if you haven't booked a sitting yet.

It's also worth checking whether your school offers any guidance on this, since many South African high schools track which universities their matriculants typically apply to and can flag common NBT requirements for those specific programs. A guidance counselor who has walked previous cohorts through the same application cycle can often confirm details faster than searching independently, and can flag any recent policy changes they've heard about directly from university liaison staff.

A related question worth flagging: if you're a mature student, an international applicant, or someone applying through a recognition-of-prior-learning route, the NBT rules can shift again. Some faculties waive it for applicants above a certain age or with substantial prior tertiary study, while others still request it regardless of background. If any of those situations apply to you, ask the admissions office directly rather than relying on the standard matriculant guidance, since exceptions aren't always published on the general requirements page.

Bottom line: there's no single, universal rule for which universities require the NBT, because the honest answer depends on the specific faculty and even the specific degree you're applying to. UCT, Wits, Stellenbosch, Rhodes, UKZN, UP, UFS, NWU, UWC, and Nelson Mandela University all use it in some form, and UJ requires it for select faculties rather than campus-wide. Always confirm directly with your target faculty, register early once you know it's required, and use realistic practice material to prepare instead of general study revision.

If you're not sure where to start, work through a couple of free practice sets first so you know which section, academic literacy or quantitative literacy, needs more of your attention before test day.

And if you end up applying to more than one university across this list, don't assume the rule from your first choice automatically applies to your second or third. Build a simple table for yourself with one row per university and faculty, note whether the NBT is required, recommended, or unused, and update it as you receive confirmation from each admissions office. That single document will save you from the single most common mistake applicants make: assuming consistency where none actually exists between institutions.