Admission campaign 2024 focuses on IT specialists and engineering

Graduation classes and students are the fastest to leave New Year’s tables. In universities and colleges, of course, there is a session, in schools there are three months before the early period of the Unified State Examination. But preparations are still in full swing: the admission essay and test exams have been written, the majority have already decided on additional exams. And, therefore, with the chosen specialty. Well, just before the New Year, universities made plans for additional budget places for themselves.

In general, Christmas time is the time to tell fortunes for the future admissions campaign. What professions will be top among applicants? Where are the admissions committees expecting a rush and a rush of competition in 2024?

As in 2023, budget priority will undoubtedly be given to engineering specialties. The total number of places for which applicants will have to compete is 592 thousand (last year there were 590,101).

“The largest increase in the number of budget places will occur in engineering training programs – there will be 2,281 more,” said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko. The task of “strengthening personnel to ensure technological sovereignty” is now more relevant than ever. Chernyshenko noted that budget places for universities in new territories will be distributed separately, in a special order.

Other additional places will be distributed this year as follows: enlarged groups of the “Health and Medical Sciences” direction will be “strengthened” the most, by 772 places. “Mechanical Engineering” – for 505 places, “Informatics and Computer Science” – for 416 places.

They also promise to provide additional budgets for the areas of “Mathematical and natural sciences”, “Information security” and “Electronics, radio electronics and communication systems”.

“Probably, the advice is on duty, like both last years – if you want a high probability of getting a budget, go for an engineering specialty,” says education expert Maria Bushueva. — The difficulty here is that you have to take physics as an additional subject on the Unified State Exam, and sometimes chemistry too. And, of course, take mathematics at the “profile” level. I’m afraid the competition will be tougher than last year. Because starting in 2021, the demographic boom generation graduates from school: each year there are more graduates than in the previous graduating class. And, in addition, new additional benefits were announced for the children of SVO participants; there was talk of raising the special quota from 10 to 20%.

By tradition, let’s remember what last year was like. In 2023, IT specialties were in the lead. More than 650 thousand applications were submitted to Computer Science and Computer Science. Applicants were eager to study in IT and in such areas as “Information Security”, “Computer and Information Sciences”, “Applied Mathematics”. The same is expected in 2024. Interestingly, the survey showed that IT specialists do not go into IT primarily to receive high salaries and to be in demand on the market even with initial experience and level of training, this is implied. But first of all, because you can work remotely.

Experts believe that all the main trends of last year will continue. And in some ways the 2023 campaign broke records. Payers and target students, whose number reached 77%, were most recruited into popular medical universities.

Another new thing: St. Petersburg surpassed Moscow in terms of the height of the competition. Of course, the “scrap” in Physics and Technology, Moscow State University, RANEPA and the same HSE has not gone away. But an incredible 200-500 people competed for one budget place in St. Petersburg.

In top universities of the two capitals, in principle, the situation has changed little for several years. To get into prestigious IT, finance or media majors, it is best to be an Olympiad athlete. Or pass four Unified State Examinations as close to 400 points as possible. The same applies to leading medical universities.

A decent stir was observed in universities in the areas of “Education and Pedagogical Sciences”, “Economics and Management”, “Mechanical Engineering”. In colleges, Information Systems and Programming, Nursing, and Tourism and Hospitality were highly rated.

As MK found out last year, studying the competitive lists, you can get into strong universities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Siberia, the Far East, central Russia and Kaliningrad with a total of 270-300 points for the Unified State Exam or so. But there will be no guarantee of admission. Unless the holder of an average score of 80-90 points on each of the exams targets the paid department. Although it should be taken into account that there is also high competition in the most popular directions and fashionable specialties.