News
Continuing with the work of improving the Admission System, based on the recommendations of the Pearson Report, the Council determined modifications to the University Selection Tests for students of technical high schools.
The executive vice president of the Council of Rectors reminded the young people who will take the PSU this year, their families and their teachers that the tests for which they have prepared will not undergo any changes for them, apart from the creation of a new elective module for technical-professional students.
The Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH) decided, in its plenary session held in Iquique, to create, based on the test that is taken this year, an elective module for technical professional students, which would be added to the existing options of Chemistry, Physics and Biology in the Science test.
With this, the Council applies a modification that will allow young people from Technical Professional Secondary Education to take a test that will have content that corresponds exclusively to the first two years of secondary education, and that in theory should be seen by students of all educational establishments in the country.
“It’s about recognizing that these students have a different curriculum than those in the sciences and humanities, and in that way, taking responsibility for adapting the assessment tool to their particular needs. However, as a Council, we continue to maintain that there is a problem of inequality within the school system that all stakeholders must address, and that goes beyond the scope of the test.”.
The rest of the University Selection Tests (PSU) will not undergo any visible changes for students in 2013, so they will take the same test for which they are preparing. However, this year, work will continue on the modifications proposed in the Pearson Report, including the documentation and standardization of processes at the Department of Educational Evaluation, Measurement, and Registration (DEMRE) of the University of Chile, the inclusion of question piloting within the test administration, and the elimination of penalties for incorrect answers.
Regarding the Grade Ranking, modifications were also proposed starting with this year's exam. The changes include a timeline that would initially extend until 2016.
For this year's test and until the 2015 selection process, it was decided to use the Ranking instrument as currently established, but lifting the restriction of the maximum 150 bonus points, using the students' grade point average with two decimal places, and adjusting the Ranking scoring table to the High School Grade Table, which will undergo changes in the coming years. Furthermore, it was determined that schools with fewer than 30 graduating students in the last three years, which currently do not have a Ranking score, will be grouped by branch and geographic area, thus enabling them to participate in this instrument.
It was also agreed to make the weighting of the Ranking by the universities more flexible, establishing a minimum of 10%, so that the institutions can decide the percentage autonomously.
In 2016, a "pure ranking" was approved to replace the current bonus system. The proposal developed by the committee that reviewed the issue incorporates the idea of calculating this ranking based on groups of similar schools to reduce the margin of error and prevent excessive competition among students from the same school. As a transition to this process, the pure ranking will be calculated in 2014 for study purposes, and in 2015 students will be informed of the implications of this change to allow sufficient time for those participating in the 2016 admissions process to understand it.
PSU exam schedule
For the 2013-2014 process, the dates are as follows:
Sunday, December 1: Recognition of rooms
Monday, December 2: PSU Language and Communication and Science
Tuesday, December 3: PSU Mathematics and History and Social Sciences
Thursday, December 26: Publication of results and verification of scores
Thursday 26 to Sunday 29: Applications
Tuesday, January 7: Publication of results
Wednesday, January 8: Selection Verification
Wednesday, January 8th to Friday, January 17th: Registration
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