The Ministry’s Strategy for Setting Priorities

This year you can submit 5 applications for state-funded places and 10 applications for fee-paying places. You do not have to submit all 15 available applications — the applicant decides how many and which ones to send.

The algorithm for issuing recommendations

1. The system analyses the applicant’s position in the ranking lists of every specialty they applied to.
2. Enrollment happens on the specialty with the highest priority (the lowest ordinal number) where the applicant’s competitive score is high enough to take an available state-funded place at the moment the system processes their application.
3. If the specialty with the highest priority has no places left, or the applicant’s competitive score is not high enough, the system checks whether enrollment is possible on the specialty with the next priority down.
4. The process continues through the applicant’s list of priorities until the first successful enrollment, or until the list runs out.

The key principle: enrolling an applicant on a specialty with any priority (even a lower one) automatically ends their participation in the competition for every specialty with a lower priority on the list. For example, being enrolled on priority 3 rules out enrollment on priorities 4 and 5. In that case the applicant can only enter the programs that sat at priorities 4 and 5 on a fee-paying basis.

You also need to set priorities on fee-paying applications. A recommendation for a fee-paying place can now be issued up to 11 August (before the state-funded lists are drawn up). This is meant for people who are certain they want to study at this particular institution, and for applicants who firmly expect to study with grant support. If you give a fee-paying application a high priority, then once you receive a fee-paying recommendation the applications with a lower priority (including the state-funded ones) will not be considered.

Advice on setting priorities

1. Write out the applications you want on a separate sheet of paper.
   
   Try ordering the priorities on a draft, make several versions. And once you make your final decision, simply transfer the version you settled on into your applicant’s account.
2. Choose your priority-ordering strategy.
   
   It all depends on whether you can afford to study on a fee-paying place and on how much you want a particular university. 1. You want a state-funded place. The algorithm looks at the first application; if the applicant does not get in on it, the system checks the next ones until the first recommendation. You cannot turn down one state-funded recommendation and take another. There is always exactly one state-funded recommendation. What is more, an applicant who turns down a state-funded recommendation loses the option of studying with grant support.