INEbase / University Entrance Exams Statistics / General methodology

Methodological note

Summary

The University Entrance Exams Statistics started to be elaborated by the National Institute of Statistics in order to meet the information requirements established by Royal Decree 3514/1974 of 20 December from the Ministry of Education and Science. Indeed, the said legal regulation established that the pupils who would have obtained a positive evaluation on the University Orientation Course (UOC) and who wanted to start university studies in the 1975-76 academic year, would be subjected to the relevant aptitude tests.

To carry out the said test the pupils had to choose one of the four options which are related to the UOC courses: technical-scientific options, biosanitary, social sciences, humanities-linguistics.

In the framework of organic law 1/1990 of 2 October, of the Education System General Order (ESGO), the order of 10 December 1992 by the Ministry of Education and Science regulated the entrance tests of the students who were studying the bachelor courses foreseen in the above law. To carry out the said tests the students could choose one of the four options which were related to the modality of the bachelor studied. The options were: scientific-technical, health sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts. Each option consisted of a relation of university degrees whose studies could be followed by the students who passed the entrance test. As a novelty of the reform produced by the ESGO in the configuration of the entrance tests, the creation of the new arts option and the possibility for the student body to present more than one option (combined options) for having studied one of some of the subjects linked to other university study options as an option is noteworthy.

Finally it is worth noting that entrance to university has been made available for people older than 25. This consists of just one exam without optional content.

Type of investigation

Since the beginning this statistical operation has been carried out by means of sending just one questionnaire to all public universities which covers information relative to the matriculated student body and student body who passed broken down by sex, convocation (June, September) and option.

Available information

Paper: University Entrance Exams Statistics

The admissions tests carried out in year X are published in the first quarter of year X+1.