new rules, who will be affected, years of the initiative: Society: Russia: Lenta.ru

Ministry of Science and Higher Education approved in Russia there is a new procedure for admission to universities for bachelor’s, specialist and master’s programs. The corresponding document was published on the legal information website.

The initiative comes into force on March 1, 2025 and will be valid until September 1, 2029.

Changes will affect the date of enrollment

Thus, when applying for bachelor’s and specialty programs as part of the main admission process, the enrollment of state-funded applicants entering by priority must be completed by higher educational institutions on August 2-3. The main stage will end on August 6-7, and the additional stage on August 10-11. Admission to paid places will now have to be completed no later than September 30.

Enrollment in the master’s program, according to the document, should end on August 29 as part of the main admission and no later than September 20 as part of the additional one. Citizens must be enrolled in paid education no later than September 30.
At the same time, for convenience, when applying to master’s programs, a super service will operate on “State Services” and enrollment in budget places will be carried out based on an application for consent to enrollment, and not on the original document of education.

The decision was called controversial and applicants were warned about a “nervous summer”

“This not only guarantees a nervous summer for applicants, but also requires a redrawing of curricula at universities so that the initial period of study is not disrupted,” Alexey Itin, head of the admissions department at ITMO University, spoke about the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science.

In his opinion, the decision to admit applicants to the master’s program in August is “somewhat controversial.”

Adjustments were also made to the rules for targeted student enrollment

In addition to changing the dates of admission of applicants, the Ministry of Education and Science proposed not to transfer into the general competition places that were not filled as part of the targeted admission. They intend to allocate them for an additional target set.

Previously, Russia refused to cancel the Unified State Exam

In October, the State Duma, during a plenary session, considered and rejected a bill introduced earlier in June to abolish the mandatory passing of the Unified State Exam (USE).

According to the draft law, they wanted to give school graduates the right to choose between the Unified State Exam and traditional final exams. The lower house of parliament for education came to the conclusion that the current procedure for passing the unified state exam guarantees a unified approach to testing the knowledge of schoolchildren and the quality of their preparation throughout the country.

Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Andrei Fursenko and Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov among the main advantages of the Unified State Exam allocated the following: these are not tests, but written work, which is more objective; the availability of alternative options to submit documents to various universities, in one of which enrollment will be ensured; absence of stress for applicants from the road to the university.