About MatricLink

Written by Mohapi · Last updated 22 August 2026 · Editorial policy

I'm Mohapi. I built MatricLink from KwaZulu-Natal because I remember sitting with a calculator and a PDF of a university's admission requirements, trying to work out my own APS by hand and getting a different number every time depending on whether I counted Life Orientation.

I assumed at the time that I was doing the arithmetic wrong. Years later, building this site properly, I found out I wasn't. The number really does change, because the universities genuinely do not agree with each other, and almost nobody tells you that.

The thing this site exists to tell you

There is no single national APS. Wits adds up your best seven subjects including Life Orientation, out of 49. UJ adds up six and throws Life Orientation out entirely, out of 42. UCT does not use an APS at all. It uses a Faculty Points Score that is calculated out of 600, 800 or 900 depending on which faculty you are applying to. Stellenbosch averages your marks instead of totalling them, so 79% and 70% are different numbers there and identical everywhere else.

So the same learner can hold four different scores at four universities, and all four are correct. If you have been comparing one number against every institution's published minimum, you have been comparing things that are not comparable. That is the single most useful thing on this website, and it is why the calculator now gives you two figures rather than one and tells each institution which of them to use.

What happened when I actually checked

This site used to carry one minimum APS per university, taken on trust. In August 2026 I went through them properly, one institution at a time, reading each university's own published admission requirements rather than what other websites said.

Eleven of the first seventeen institutions I checked were wrong on this site. Some were wrong by a few points. Several were wrong in kind:

• TUT and DUT were listed as counting Life Orientation. Both exclude it.
• UWC was listed as excluding it. It counts it, as one of seven prescribed subjects.
• Fort Hare was listed at 22 when its published minimum is 26 or higher, so the old figure told people they were in range when they were not.
• VUT, an entire public university of technology, was missing from the directory altogether.

I've left correction notices on the pages concerned rather than quietly fixing them, because if you used a wrong figure here you deserve to know it was wrong. Nine institutions still have not been checked line by line, and their cards say so on their face rather than pretending to a confidence I don't have.

What's on the site now

• The APS calculator, which works out both of your scores and shows its arithmetic.
• A guide to each university. 18 of the 26 public institutions so far, covering how each one scores you, whether Life Orientation counts, what triggers the NBT, and what people get wrong applying there.
• The TVET route, which is not APS-based at all and stays open regardless of your marks.
• Private colleges, including how to check one is accredited before you pay anyone anything. That page is the one I'd most want a stranger to read.
• Guides on results appeals, rewriting matric, NSFAS and the N+ rule, bursaries, residence and late applications.

Being honest about what this is

One person, in their spare time, from KwaZulu-Natal. Not an admissions office, not a company, not an agent. There is no team behind this and I'm not going to pretend there is.

What that means practically: I can read a prospectus carefully and explain it in plain language, and I can't monitor twenty-six institutions continuously. Requirements move. Some of what's here will go out of date before I catch it. That's why every page carries the date it was last updated, and why the editorial policy sets out where figures come from, how often each type of page gets re-checked, and what happens when someone reports an error.

The rule I hold myself to is simple: no invented numbers, ever. If I can't source a figure from the institution itself, it doesn't go on the page. I say it's unconfirmed and link you to where you can check. There are figures missing from this site for exactly that reason. I'd rather have a gap than a guess, because a wrong closing date or a wrong cut-off can cost someone a year.

Nobody pays to appear here. There are no affiliate links and no sponsored placements, and no institution has been offered one. The site carries advertising from a third-party network, placed automatically, with no influence on anything written and none of it on the policy or contact pages. The disclaimer covers that in full, along with the fact that MatricLink is independent of the DBE, Umalusi, the CAO, DHET and every institution it writes about.