Female candidates made up 68.02 per cent or 28,280 of 41,573 candidates who gained admission to public institutions of higher learning (IPTAs) for first degree in the 2013/2014 academic session.

They were chosen from 68,702 applicants, 24,489 or 58.9 per cent of them from the science stream and 17,084 (41.1 per cent) from the arts stream, said Higher Education Department director-general Prof Datuk Morshidi Sirat.

He said 49 of the successful applicants were orang asli; people who were physically challenged (68); and, national and international athletes (1,515).

Morshidi said the IPTAs would issue formal offer letters to successful candidates, beginning tomorrow.

He said 74.3 per cent or 30,903 of the successful candidates were Bumiputera, 7,913 Chinese (19 per cent), 1,824 Indians (4.4 per cent) and 933 from other races (2.3 per cent).

Morshidi said 5,765 candidates were offered competitive courses, namely medicine (699), dentistry (119), pharmacy (260), law (385), chemical engineering (953), mechanical engineering (1,304), electrical and electronic engineering (1,122) and accounting (923).

The admission is based on the order of merit and selection of programmes in the universities applied for, he said, adding: "If the merit of a candidate is not so high and he applied for a competitive programme, it is unlikely that he is offered the programme."

He said, on the other hand, if a candidate applied to only popular universities, he would face a stiff competition and ultimately, fail to get a place from the universities.

The status of the applications can be checked at http://upu.mohe.gov.my, http://www.jpt.utm.my, http://jpt.uum.edu.my, https://jpt.unimas.my, http://jpt.ums.edu.my from today, or by contacting hotline 03-8870 6767, helpline 03-8870 6777, general line 03-8870 6755/6766 or by texting UPU RESULT (IC no) to 15888.

"Successful candidates must confirm acceptance within 10 days of the offer, on or before July 21. Letters of offer and confirmation can be printed from the IPTA website," he said.

Candidates can also go to the Student Admission Management Division, Higher Education Department in Presint 5 to check the status of their applications from today until July 21.

Unsuccessful candidates can file an appeal online within 10 days through e-Rayuan at http://upu.mohe.gov.my starting today, until midnight on July 21.

Morshidi said the appeal was subjected to availability of places and an appeal was deemed unsuccessful if an applicant did not get any reply from the IPTA by Sept 30.

The registration of the new intake will be on Sept 1 and 2, he added.