The advance of the selection process to this week, and not to the middle of June as is usual, will allow students to eat the Sant Joan cake knowing their admission grade. Not if they have entered the chosen degree (which is why they will have to wait until July 12th), but the qualification of the exams that are held today, tomorrow and in the past all over Catalonia.
The universities that are home to the two hundred tribunals that organize the university entrance exams (PAU) yesterday were already ready to welcome this morning the 41,671 students who requested to take them, a thousand more than last year past This constitutes a record in the history of these assessments (also known as EBAU).
“The tests are similar to those of the last editions, which are approved by 97% of those who appear”, wanted to reassure the general secretary of the Inter-University Council of Catalonia (CIC), Laura Roman, during the presentation of the tests last week. The uncertain ones are those of next year, in June 2024, which must respond to the Lomloe curricula, but the decree that must define the new model has been suspended by the Spanish Government until after the general elections. Its wording will depend on the elected government, but it must be linked to what the 1st year high school students have already studied this year. “Whatever they are, they won’t be asked anything that they haven’t done in class”, assured sources from the CIC, the body in charge of preparing the content of the tests and organizing the courts.
For the time being, those starting today continue in the form of recent years: a mandatory general phase for those coming from high school, with five subjects, and another specific and voluntary phase in which they can apply for three subjects, although only they count two for the grade.
They will break your nerves early in the morning with Spanish language and literature. Before that, they will indicate on a sheet that they will give to the members of the tribunal the language in which they want to read the statements (Catalan or Spanish, and Aranese in history) in each of the exams (except for those of languages, which are not eligible). At 12 o’clock they will continue with a foreign language.
On Thursday, the students will start with history and continue with the subject of their modality (artistic drawing, Latin or mathematics). On the last day, Friday 9 June, they will have Catalan language and literature. The duration of the exams will be an hour and a half for all subjects, and will be extended to 2 hours in the courts for students with specific educational support needs.
For high school students (32,698) the general phase is mandatory, but not for students from higher education courses (4,191), who only take the optional subjects to raise their grade. This is the group that has risen the most compared to the previous year, with almost 10% more applications, a fact that consolidates the trend year after year of the transition from vocational training to university.
A third minority group, the free enrollment group, amounts to 4,742, with a slight increase compared to 2022.
The final marks will reflect the qualification of the general phase (from 1 to 10) and the optional phase, which corresponds to a maximum of two subjects out of the three to which they can apply (valid for two more years).
The university entrance grade qualifies up to 10 and is the result of the baccalaureate assessment (60%) and the grade of the general phase (40% if the grade is equal to or higher than 4)
. But it can reach 14 if the weighted value of the two optional subjects is added.
The pre-registration process for university degrees began yesterday, June 6, and will end on the 30th of this month. Places will be assigned to the highest grades and the cut-off grade, which is the grade of the last student with a place, will be established on July 12.
