Picked up here – Newspaper Kommersant No. 150 (7351) dated 08/18/2022

Many Russian universities, including top ones, this year enrolled applicants whose USE results are much worse than those of last year’s first-year students. Kommersant made this conclusion by comparing the statistics of admissions committees in 2021 and 2022. Basically, this problem touched technical areas. Some universities claim that this year’s graduates passed the exam in specialized mathematics and physics worse than in the past. Others point out that schoolchildren, in principle, have become less likely to choose these two subjects for taking the exam. Still others complain that “PR of high salaries for IT specialists” forced graduates to make a choice in favor of IT specialties. Another possible explanation is the cancellation of the “second wave” of enrollment, which provoked indecisive honors students to apply to less demanding regional universities.

Kommersant studied the data from the websites of the admissions committees of Russian universities and found that this summer, applicants who passed the exam significantly worse than last year’s graduates were able to enter the budget. We are talking mainly about technical areas for which the USE in specialized mathematics and physics is required.

Every year, the university establishes for each faculty a list of USE subjects, as well as a minimum threshold of points with which applicants can try to enter. For example, to submit documents to MSTU. Bauman in Mechanical Engineering, the graduate must receive at least 45 points in each of the three exams. For “Engineering” it is profile mathematics, Russian language and physics or computer science to choose from. But the minimum set of points does not guarantee admission at all. All those who submitted documents participate in the general competition of points based on the sum of three exams. This is how the rating of applicants is formed, where the cut-off point depends on the number of budget places. As a result, those who scored the highest points go to the budget. The more “excellent students” choose “Mechanical Engineering”, the tougher the competition between them, which means that the higher scores of the applicant who took the last free budgetary place.

As Kommersant discovered, last year the last one credited to the budget at MSTU. Bauman in the direction of “Applied Mathematics and Informatics” entered with 290 points. And this year, the cut-off point was much lower – the last one was the applicant with 272 points. The same situation was found in the areas of “Informatics and Computer Science” (last year 277 points, now 257), “Information Systems and Technologies” (from 277 to 247), “Mathematics and Computer Science” (from 271 to 228), and also in “Applied Mechanics” (from 261 to 202) and in the direction of “Radioelectronic Systems and Complexes” (from 234 immediately to 163).

There is a similar picture in NRNU MEPhI, where the passing scores for the budget have decreased, for example, in Nuclear Power Engineering and Thermal Physics (from 276 to 229), Mechatronics and Robotics (from 285 to 245), as well as in other specialized physics and mathematics departments .

Less prepared graduates were able to enter the budget this year even at Moscow State University. Lomonosov. In the Applied Mathematics and Informatics direction in 2021, the last budget place went to an applicant with 430 points, and this year it was received by a graduate who scored only 405. Kommersant recorded a similar decline in the areas of Fundamental and Applied Chemistry (from 385 to 307) and Fundamental and Applied Physics (from 340 to 328). At MSTU im. Bauman yesterday they were unable to promptly prepare answers to Kommersant’s questions, MEPhI and Moscow State University have not yet responded to the request at all.

Novosibirsk State University confirmed the decrease in passing scores at a number of faculties – Mechanics and Mathematics, Information Technology, Physics, as well as at the Higher College of Informatics. The university names the most obvious reason: high school graduates passed exams in some subjects on average worse than last year. A similar situation is also recorded at the North Caucasian Federal University, Kazan Aviation University and Tomsk Polytechnic University. “There are obvious factors – in the summer of 2022, graduates of Russian schools failed not only in physics – a standard situation for the last five years – but also in specialized mathematics,” complains Alexander Denisevich, executive secretary of the admissions committee of Tomsk Polytechnic University. “And these are the main subjects for all technical specialties. And most importantly, few applicants took these subjects at all. It’s a big systemic problem.”

According to Rosobrnadzor, in 2022, approximately 302,000 graduates passed the USE in specialized mathematics, and in 2021, 366,000 people chose this subject. Fewer schoolchildren also passed the USE in physics this year – 101,000 against 128,000 in 2021. However, the department claims that the average score in the physics exam did not decrease much – from 55.1 in 2021 to 54.1 in 2022. And in specialized mathematics, he even grew – from 55.1 to 56.8. “We believe that the decrease in the number of students taking mathematics is due to a more conscious choice of subjects by graduates,” they say in Rosobrnadzor. “As for physics, it should be noted that at the same time the number of those taking computer science has increased. This may be due to the applicant’s ability to provide results in one of these subjects to choose from when entering universities.

In 2020, the Ministry of Education and Science allowed applicants to independently choose between the Unified State Exam in physics or computer science for a number of areas. “A situation has turned out when, with an increase in the number of state-funded places in the field of IT and physical and mathematical sciences, there have been fewer applicants from the Unified State Examination in physics,” explains the executive secretary of the admissions committee of the UNN. N. I. Lobachevsky Pavel Agrba. – Most applicants who plan to work in the IT field in the future pass the Unified State Examination in Informatics. At the same time, some of the guys who passed the Unified State Exam in physics with high scores also left for IT specialties. This was facilitated by an active PR campaign in the IT industry and the confidence of applicants in the very high salaries of IT specialists immediately after graduation, and often even in senior courses.”

Associate Professor of the Department of Political and Public Communications of the Institute of Social Sciences of the RANEPA Nikolai Kulbaka believes that the change in admission rules is to blame for the decrease in passing scores. We are talking about enrollment in the “one wave”, which has been held for the second year (see “Kommersant” dated August 9). “Now applicants cannot transfer documents from one university to another, so they decide to immediately take them to where they have a priori more chances,” he says. “As a result, top universities are left without strong but insecure students – they decide immediately act in the regions. Mikhail Kompanets, Director of the Department for Work with FEFU Applicants, confirmed in an interview with Kommersant that their passing score for the budget has increased in almost all engineering areas of training.

It should be noted that earlier St. Petersburg universities recorded a significant decrease in the number of out-of-town first-year students. For example, at St Petersburg University in 2021 their share was 74.5%, and in 2022 it is already 68.6%. In RGPU them. A. I. Herzen in 2021 among freshmen there were 55% of non-residents, and in 2022 – about 40%. At the same time, passing scores are also falling in St. Petersburg universities – and here Kommersant’s interlocutors also blame the “one wave”. “This year, applicants had to make a quick decision about submitting originals, but anxiety about delays in the delivery of documents prevented many from taking risks,” says Aleksey Itin, Executive Secretary of the ITMO University Admissions Committee. , where exactly they want to go, were afraid to make an unambiguous bet on a specific direction and left the competition. Because of this, applicants with lower scores, who firmly decided to enter a particular university, moved up the list.” He cited the Infochemistry program as an example, where the gap between enrolled students with the highest and lowest exam results was only 30 points.

Anna Vasilyeva, Ulyana Mironova; corset “b”