Thousands of School Students from Russia and CIS Participated in the Izumrud Olympiad

14:12, February 18, 2020

Awardees can enroll into Russian universities next year without competitions

The qualifying stage (online testing) of the multidisciplinary Olympiad for schoolchildren Izumrud has completed. 32043 people took part in it (10% more than last year). The final stage (in person) in Russia will take place from February 29 to March 3 at 15 sites, among which for the first time the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Orenburg and Kemerovo Regions. In some of the CIS countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan - students will be able to test knowledge in the second half of March at seven sites.

“This year, our long-term work with gifted students outside the country was first noted by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. We are pleased that talented students from neighboring countries who will prove themselves at this skills competitions will be able to receive significant benefits when they enter Russian universities on an equal basis with our fellow citizens. A relatively small number of allocated quotas only increases the prestige of this award,” says Maxim Shnyriov, Head at the Dept. of Continuing Education and Career Guidance of the Ural Federal University.

According to the minutes of the meeting dated January 23, 2020, the Ministry of Education and Science assigned the Izumrud Olympiad official international status. Now, foreign citizens who became awardees in 2020, will be able to enter Russian universities without examinations for the budget. Seven quotas will be distributed among them in mathematics and the Russian language.

“All Awardees of the Izumrud Olympiad will be able to enter any university in the country to free places without entrance examinations - the sum of points for the Unified State Examination - or receive additional points in accordance with the admission rules," the Ural Federal University explains in the department of further education and career guidance.

For Your Inquiry

The Izumrud Olympiad has been held since 2015 and is the largest school Olympiad organized by the Ural Federal University. In the qualifying stage of the 2018/19 school year, 29,587 students took part in it, 4473 of whom went to the full-time final stage. The winners and prize winners were 880 of the most talented schoolchildren, 60 of whom entered the Ural Federal University for budget-funded places without entrance examinations.

In 2019, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia included Izumrud Olympiad in the list of school Olympiads for the 2019/20 academic year in six profiles: history, mathematics, social studies, political science, the Russian language and sociology. Participation in the Izumrud Olympiad is free of charge.