Translated material
Embassation by the exam: a quest for children and their parents
Once I purchased train tickets in India via the Internet. In the quit, in front of the surnames were the letters RAC and WL. The abbreviations meant that the passage itself was paid, but only its opportunity. By the RAC ticket (Reservation Against Cancellation) you can go sitting, i.e. In half the sleeping place, while you won’t go anywhere on WL ticket, because WL means Waiting List - “waiting for waiting”. Or maybe you will go, if suddenly someone with a berth will remove the reservation. You will learn about this four hours before departure from endless lists at the station.
Exam - a test of dexterity and quick wits
Why am I? The fact is that admission to Russian universities has become incredibly similar to traveling on Indian railways. Only the abbreviations are different - the exam (the Unified State Exam) and the CCP (control figures of admission).
Suppose your child decided to study in the city where you live and enter only one university. In it, he chose two areas of training. Suppose he gave to the university the results of the exam, the original certificate and wrote consent to enrollment in the first direction. On Saturday July 29, you will see the lists of applicants and lists of enrolled by quotas, estimate the number of budget places (KCP) and suddenly find that the chance of entering the second direction is much higher.
Then, before lunch on Tuesday, August 1, your child needs to come to the selection committee and rewrite the consent to enrollment in another direction. As you can see, even in this trivial case, non -trivial actions are required from you.
A little complicated the task, children and parents plunge into a fascinating quest. If you choose no longer between the directions of one university, but between several universities, then in the same one and a half days you need to remove the certificate at one university (it should be given in two hours, but who knows where it fell) and take it to another (having managed to do this two hours before the end of the working day).
And if you choose between, say, St. Petersburg State University and Moscow State University, while living in Barnaul, then in case of a successful flight of your certificate between the two capitals of the Ministry of Education, it will be obliged to give you a double diploma with honors on logistics and management.
Oh yes, if your child could not do in the first wave, i.e. You can learn all these procedures in the second wave among 80% of the enrolling, when entering the remaining 20%. Repetition is the mother of teaching. So, on the third trip on the Indian train, we already knew where to look and what to wait. So go to Russian universities as often as possible, and then you will not have difficulty!
For those who are interested in the details, I refer to a detailed algorithm of actions [1] and an illustrative example [2] on thematic sites. However, you should not expect that on the Internet you will find answers to all your questions. The main document is still the order of the Ministry of Education and Science [3], and in the case of discrepancies, I strongly recommend contacting him.
Equal opportunities?
Previously, it seemed to me that, despite all the costs, the education reform reached its main goal - it ensured an equal possibility of entering any university, regardless of the place of residence of the Russian applicant. In pre -reform times, one of my friends entered the MIPT, and the other is not, and only for the reason that during the entrance exams it was necessary to pay for accommodation in Moscow.
Today, thanks to the exam, you can, without leaving, send documents by mail to five Russian universities, choosing from three areas in each. It would seem, what else to wish? In fact, the receipt takes place according to pre -reform patterns: in order to enter the remote university, you must either get obviously passing points in the exam (that is, maximum hundreds), or live near the university within two weeks.
Paradoxically, Minister Dmitry Livanov, the main instigator of reforms, himself crossed out his main mission - to provide the right to equal access to education - one order [3]. Moreover, he returned to universities the opportunity to conduct his exams in which the apologists of the exam saw the quintessence of corruption.
How did it happen that they wanted how better, but it turned out as always? The ministry could not resist the pressure of the leadership of universities [4], and the opinion of the applicants ... can they have their own opinion? Indeed, applicants are such creatures that live only a month and a half a year. The rest of the time they are either students, or graduates, or already students.
The strongest survive: Memo to parents
Admission to the Russian university is quite in the spirit of the Darwin Survival of the Fittest. Unfortunately, applicants are not able to pass on their skills to the next generation. GIA and the exam are vaccinations that form a bureaucratic dislocation of the brain in students. I think that this is why graduates understand the admission algorithm much better than parents.
The latter are unconsciously focusing on their outdated experience of "abedure", but, oddly enough, this experience has now become quite relevant thanks to the aforementioned order of the Ministry of Education. “I passed the exam - wait for a decision” - this is a very reasonable tactic when choosing one university and one direction. But do not you want to squeeze the maximum of the possible of efforts and means spent on the exam?
If the exams are passed, points are on hand, then you can find all available options and choose the most acceptable from them in three hours of intensive surfing on the Internet. Again, we use the pluses of reform - today universities provide almost all the necessary data on their sites.
Firstly, evaluate whether the results of your child’s exam are exceeded by the minimum values established by the ministry [5]. If they exceed, this is already a sufficient occasion to go to the victorious end. Even with a total score of about 140, your child may well apply for a budget education, though in absentia (unfortunately, information about the “correspondence” on university sites is often cut, especially regarding passing points). In addition, graduates of 2017 were born in 1999, and this is a global minimum of birth rate in the history of modern Russia [6]. Accordingly, the competition this year will be lower than in all previous and all subsequent years.
Secondly, orient in which cities your child wants to study, and specify where in person, and where-only in absentia. Having chosen universities, evaluate the minimum points set by each specific university, and discard those where your offspring is obviously does not pass. The most important information about the probability of receipt is among budget places (KCP) and in the passing point for past years.
The higher the first digit and lower, the higher the probability of receipt. I recommend accurate numbers only on sites of specific universities. It is better to double -check the USE calculator on the university’s website, based on published documents. Sites aggregates and calculators on information portals can only be used to navigate as areas of training and learn about the most popular universities.
Those parents whose children are just going to take the exam, I ask you to pay attention to the following. Strictly speaking, the mechanics laid down in the USE suggests the reverse process: not to pass exams first, and then look for a university and faculty for them, but rather. Ideally, the schoolboy must first choose a specialty, see what exams are required for the corresponding direction of preparation, find in which universities they teach it, and after that prepare for them. For this purpose, one should also participate in the Olympiads and form a portfolio. At this stage, you can evaluate the intellectual capabilities of the student, and then adjust the desires of the parents.
The profitability of education
Fear of parents and applicants in front of the exam is focused in the phrase: "You will not enter the budget." In fact, this fear is based on the desire of the parents to save at the expense of the superpowers of the child. Financial planning will not increase the chances of receipt, but at least sobering up - and will highlight an important paradox.
So, to enroll on the budget for a “fashionable” specialty, a high score for the exam is needed - up to 90 points for each subject. You can dial them with a good school, tutor or training courses. The courses cost about 50 thousand rubles. per year; Classes with a tutor - 1.5-2.0 thousand rubles. twice a week for six months, i.e., about the same 50 thousand rubles. This is one subject. For two, therefore, 100, and in three - 150. Preferably for two years.
If we take into account educational materials and a good school, then the total costs will amount to about two years of paid training at the university (not the first echelon, but without blood and sweat). As you can see, budget education flies into a penny even before admission, which, again, no one guarantees. These calculations indicate that the preliminary assessment of the resources of the parents will allow you to adjust the desires of the same child.
Summarizing the above, I note that higher education in Russia (including the budget) has actually became a paid service, the fee for which is distributed either before receipt or after. Awareness of this fact implies a different level of awareness of the goals of its receipt than ten years ago.
In a good, general characteristic of any education, profitability should be the time during which the funds spent on it are paid off, along with lost benefit over the years without income [7]. This approach dictates a different level of resource assessment and a different level of understanding their desires by both children and parents.
Andrey Vorokh,
cand. physical. sciences, Art. scientific. sore. Institute of Chemistry of Solid Body of the RAS RAS
1. Tactics of admission to the university in 2016 .
2. What is "consent to enrollment"? (section "Frequently asked questions") .
5. The minimum number of USE points upon admission to universities .