On February 19, 2015, the First Deputy Minister of Education and Science, during a briefing before the direct telephone line of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, talked about the peculiarities of the admission campaign in 2016.

She noted that this year the admissions campaign will begin on July 11. Admission committees of higher educational institutions will accept documents from applicants until July 27.

It is impractical to open admissions offices for a longer period of time. As last year's admissions campaign showed, more than a third of the total number of applicants' applications came in electronic form. Also, due to demographics, the number of graduates, at least until 2019, will decrease. "Such a decision will not lead to long queues at admission commissions," the first deputy minister said.

Persons who will enroll in those specialties, for which interviews, exams and creative competitions are planned, will submit documents to the university by July 20. Enrollment in state-ordered places will be carried out no later than August 6. This year will be the last recruitment for the educational and qualification levels junior specialist, specialist.

According to the first deputy minister, the entrants will submit their applications according to the priority set in place last year. "The priority system has proven its success. This made it possible to make the procedure more automated and transparent, in particular, in fact, 85 % entrants in 2015 were distributed during the first automatic wave of enrollment," said the First Deputy Minister.

During the 2016 admissions campaign, the entrant submits the same number of applications as last year - 15. The regulation on the number of universities to which an entrant can apply is removed, while the number of specialties to which an entrant can apply is limited to 5 specialties.

She reported that one of the important features of the admission campaign in 2016 is that the ministry will no longer carry out manual allocation of state-ordered places. As the First Deputy Minister explained, the number of places for a certain specialty is set for a higher educational institution. The applicant, having determined his priority, will receive a recommendation for admission, thus the university will know how many applicants from among the best who have received the right to study on the budget in a certain specialty, they have. "Universities, according to the indicators of the number of state places they had last year, can add up to 25 % to the number of applicants compared to last year," the First Deputy Minister noted.

It was stated that registration for the external independent evaluation began on February 1 and will continue until March 4.

This year, the graduates will complete the state final certification in the form of an external examination in two subjects: the first is Ukrainian language and literature; the second choice is the history of Ukraine or mathematics. It will be possible to choose no more than 4 subjects for taking external independent assessment tests.

The First Deputy Minister assured that the external examination will take place according to the schedule, and the problems related to the functioning of the system, which arose at the beginning of the 2015/2016 academic year, did not affect the preparation for the external examination in 2016.