The way Hungarian students can get accepted to higher education institutions after secondary school significantly changed this year. Universities and colleges now have a lot more leeway in determining based on which criteria they are awarding the 100 ‘extra points’ to the applicants.

As in the previous years, 400 points out of the total 500 are strictly based on the students’ performance at the so-called ‘érettségi’ exam, the Hungarian approximation to the SATs in the US or the GCSEs in the United Kingdom, which students take when graduating from secondary school. Under the previous system, the remaining 100 points could be awarded for state-prescribed achievements such as passing state-accredited foreign language exams, or outstanding achievements in sports.

This year, however,

colleges can allocate those 100 points for having completed their in-house preparation course,

or for graduating from a secondary school that is in strategic partnership with the university, among others. Colleges can still choose to award extra points for foreign language certificates; however, how many points they give for one is now under their sole discretion.

Minister of Culture and Innovation Balázs Hankó of Hungary praised the new system introduced this year. At a roundtable talk hosted by the Semmelweis University in Budapest on Thursday, 29 August, he told the audience:

‘Flexibility, competitiveness and institutional autonomy are provided by the new higher education admission system, the oral portion of which also ensures mutual acquaintance between the institution and the prospective student’.

He went on to add that we should be proud of our universities in Hungary, as they have made enormous progress in knowledge, internationalization, and identity-building in recent years.

Related articles: