Admission Campaign – 2015: March

"Just like during all the last months, staff of our Admission Commission, faculty of the Department of Preliminary Education, and personnel of other units of our University have been keeping on their profession-orienting activities among students of Astrakhan Region's secondary schools, lyceums, gymnasiums, and colleges: we visit educational institutions, meet our potential students, and provide them with up-to-date information about admission to ASU.

The Week of Open Doors is a traditional spring event at our University. It's been held in late March for our prospective students and for their parents, who could talk with Deans and with staff of the Admission Commission, to clarify details of the admission procedure, and to choose their future specialization.

I'd like to remind that one and the same set of scores gained at the Unified State Exam can be used to apply for different specialties. If you haven't decided which profession to choose, we'd advise you to apply for several (not more than three) specializations or to think about taking a creative entrance exam that our University arranges itself.

As for a second higher education, three opportunities are available for a prospective student: to get education at the same level (that is, to choose a bachelor program), but in another field; to continue your education in the same specialty, but already at the next level (that is, to choose a master program in the same field); to get education at the next level and in another specialty (that is, to choose a master program in a different field). Please be aware that a second higher education is available only on self-paid terms at the bachelor level; as for a master program, you may be enrolled on free, budget-funded terms, even if you've already got a higher education.

Not long ago, our University received a letter from the Federal Ministry of Education & Science about approval of target admission quotas. Just like a year ago, this quota has made up 15 % of the control figures of admission (except for such specialties as Pedagogical Education, Psychological Pedagogical Education, and Special Speech Pathology Education, which allow target admission at a higher rate). Now those figures are being agreed with the corresponding ministries of Astrakhan Region. In particular, the Regional Ministry of Education & Science is analyzing needs of various institutions that it supervises (mainly in rural areas) to determine which specialists will be demanded there in four years. As usual, there's a high demand for primary school teachers, for teachers of Chemistry, Physics, Math, ICT, and so on.

To make different specialties demanded by our prospective students, we try to alternate admission to similar specialties. For example, many young people were enrolled to cover the specialty "Pedagogical Education (Mathematics) last year; as for this year, anyone can choose Mathematics or Applied Mathematics & Information Science.

Not long ago, the Federal Ministry of Education & Science published a project of changes in the 2015 Universities Admission Procedure. Anyone who got a secondary general education before 2009 now has to present their scores gained at the Unified State Examination. That project suggests allowing universities to enroll such people on the base of entrance examinations that a university arranges itself. That'd be a splendid chance for such people to get a higher education: many of them had no time to sign up for a USE this year within the set deadline; their current USE certificates are already out of date, and no USE will be held in July this year, as it used to be. I hope this project will be approved officially".

Interviewed by T.Yu. Gavrilkina (the Innovative Laboratory of Information Linguistics of ASU)