The Office of Higher Education Commission (Ohec) will not call for runners-up to fill seats left vacant at various universities after many successful applicants under its direct-admission system failed to show up for the mandatory interviews.

Ohec secretary-general Pavich Thongroj yesterday said the vacant seats would instead be transferred to the central-admission system.

The results of the central-admission system will be announced tomorrow.

"We have already allowed applicants to have choices when they apply under this system," Pavich explained.

Under the central-admission system, applicants can select four choices of faculties at their preferred institutes. Their scores will determine whether they will get their first, second, third or fourth choice - or none at all.

"Also, if we keep calling the runners-up, the minimum scores at some faculties will be much lower than they should be," Pavich said.

Thammasat University rector Surapon Nitikraipot said that because of Ohec's decision not to summon runners-up, his university would accept direct applications from students from tomorrow until Friday at Rangsit campus to fill seats in its Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts.

Chulalongkorn University vice president Weerasak Udomkijdecha said CU would call on runners-up to fill seats left vacant by successful applicant no-shows.

"We have the list of runners-up ready," he said. CU held its own direct admission, without depending on the Ohec.

In a related development, Basic Education Commission deputy secretary-general Areerat Wattanasin, said her agency had already forwarded the revised grades of about 6,500 applicants to the Ohec, but had no information on 110 other applicants.

"Schools have informed us there is no information on these applicants," she said. Areerat suspected these applicants may have failed to complete education at these schools or failed to request the revised grades in the first place.

Authorities have agreed to revise grades for applicants who completed Grade 12 before the 2005 academic year.

Prior to this, students at secondary schools had five categories of grades: 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. However, starting from the 2005 academic year, students have eight categories of grades: 0, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 and 4.

Grades from senior secondary-education years carry a 30-per-cent weighting in the university-admission criteria this year, up from 10 per cent last year.