Admission Campaign – 2014: August

“During the last summer month, we handled the main stage of admitting new students who applied for full-time and distance studies. All the budget-financed positions of the full-time form of studies were filled up. We admitted 676 people to bachelor programs, 402 people – to master programs, 18 people – to PhD programs, and 205 – to secondary professional education programs that our Technical College delivers. We also admitted new students who will pay for their studies themselves: 426 people will cover bachelor programs on self-paid terms, 40 people will cover master programs on the same terms, and 10 people will pay for their coverage of a PhD program. Speaking about the distance budget-financed form of studies, we admitted 307 people to bachelor programs, 10 people – to master programs, and 30 people – to the Technical College. 26 people have been admitted to distance master programs on self-paid terms. We’ll continue to receive documents of people who wish to cover a bachelor, a master, or a secondary education program on distance self-paid terms up to September 05.

As refugees from Ukraine were among applicants, we declared that we’d receive their documents to admit them to positions within the quota for residents of Sebastopol and Crimea that still remained vacant after August 11. Besides the standard package of documents, such entrants had to present a certificate confirming their status of a countryperson or an ex-citizen of the Soviet Union or Russia, or a descendant of such a person. Eventually, we admitted 11 people (9 of them on budget-financed terms and 2 people on self-paid terms) to such specialties as Mechatronics & Robotics, International Relations, Linguistics, and Law Science.

As for the most demanded specialties, the highest rate of competition has been to such specializations as Economics, Law Science, Information Systems & Technologies, Chemistry, etc. We were delighted to reveal that pedagogical specialties are of high demand, too: Pedagogical Education (Primary School Education), Pedagogical Education (Preschool Education), Pedagogical Education (Mathematics), etc. The high rate of competition was due to the fact that the Regional Ministry of Education & Science has requested about 40 % of budget-financed positions, as there’s an acute shortage of qualified teachers at our local schools.

Unfortunately, some unpleasant situations happened. Some potential students didn’t read their receipts carefully (the deadline of receiving the original of their documents of secondary education was written there in bold letters), and that’s why they were not admitted to budget-financed positions, although their scores made it possible for them. There were also such entrants who had an insufficient number of Unified State Exam certificates (as a rule, they took just a typical set –Russian, Math, and Social Science), so they couldn’t submit their documents to the specialty they wished. Some entrants got scores that were lower than our minimal acceptable rates: we recommended them to submit their documents to our Technical College.

After analyzing the problems our potential students have faced this year, I’d like to give some advice to our future students. Choose as many disciplines as possible to take at the Unified State Exam, read information on the Official Web Site of our University carefully (section “For Prospective Students”), and listen to advice our staff gives you.

Our dear prospective students of 2015, please don’t let your opportunities fade away! This year, it’s the first time that the Admission Rules shall be published not in February, but much earlier – in October. We strongly recommend that you visit our Open-Door Days: you learn about the range of disciplines, in which you must take a Unified State Exam (if you want to be admitted to this or that particular specialty), about the number of budget-financed positions, and other useful information. We’re looking forward to seeing you at Astrakhan State University!”