From June 20, 2026, the admission campaign for Russian universities will begin. It has undergone a number of important changes that applicants should take into account. How the admission campaign will go in 2026, what innovations there will be and what categories of future students can enter the university without passing exams – in the material “Moscow Evening”.
Admission rules and campaign conditions
The first stage is submitting documents
In 2026, USE results for 2022-2026 will be valid for admission campaign. There is no need for a Unified State Examination certificate – the universities themselves check the number of points in the database.
To enroll at the university, applicants need:
- statement;
- A copy of the certificate with attachments;
- Snells;
- A copy of the passport
- Documents confirming individual merits or achievements (if any).
important: Some universities may also require an electronic medical certificate SEMD (196), which replaces the paper certificate form 086/u, or other documents. Information about the documents that may be required for admission is published on the official websites of higher education institutions. Admission campaigns may also begin in a number of universities before June 20.
Applicants can choose five universities and five majors in each. When submitting an application, you must arrange the directions in order of priority: the most preferred directions must be marked with the number 1, and the least priority with the number 5. Before the end of accepting documents, applicants have the right to change the order of priority.
Phase 2 – additional tests (not for everyone)
After submitting documents, a number of universities can conduct admission tests, the exact dates of which are determined by each educational institution in the period from June 21 to July 25. It can be performed:
- In addition to the results of the Unified State Examination – for applicants registered in creative, sports, military or highly specialized fields;
- Instead of passing the Unified State Examination – for persons with disabilities, applicants who graduated from schools abroad, foreign citizens and university graduates who have obtained a diploma of secondary vocational education.
The third stage – publishing the competition lists
The next stage of the admissions campaign is July 27: publication of competitive lists that reflect the position of each applicant based on the number of points scored. Positions are ranked in descending order of points scored. The list may also contain priority tags:
- Main highest priority – for applicants who can be registered on condition of submitting approval for admission, if their position in the competitive list has not changed due to the appearance of applicants with higher scores;
- The highest priority for success is for applicants who have already provided their consent for registration and are undergoing a competition for the chosen specialization.
Fourth stage – registration
Enrollment in universities is divided into three stages:
- Priority – for applicants who have not taken entrance examinations and are under the quota system (they must submit approval before 12:00 Moscow time on August 1; admission orders will be published on August 3);
- Home – registration for the main competition (submission of consent – until 12:00 Moscow time on August 5; applications for registration will be published on August 7);
- Additional – if there are budget places after the main stage (submission of approval – until 12:00 Moscow time on August 9; applications for registration will be published on August 11).
If there are still vacant places in the budget section after the additional stage, the University may conduct another reception of applicants. If they cannot pass the competition for budget places at any of the selected universities, they can apply for admission again, but this time to a paid department. The deadline for accepting applicants at each university is individual, but ends no later than September 20.
“Day of silence”
In 2026, “Day of Silence” was featured in a college admissions campaign. This is the day on which the institution issues an order for registration. From this day on, the applicant can no longer manage his or her registration consent. Presumably, this measure should make the competition situation more predictable.
What is the budget and target locations in 2026?
- In 2026, more than 620,000 budget places are available for university applicants.
- More than 83,000 places are allocated for targeted training in 2026, more than a third of which are in healthcare; About 20 thousand – in the field of engineering and technology; About 13.5 thousand – in education and upbringing, and more than nine thousand – in agriculture. The quota is formed on the basis of applications from companies and organizations.
Targeted training is a form of budget training, in which a student studies at state expense at the request of a specific employer, and after graduation is asked to work for him for several years.
Changes to the 2026 admissions campaign
- You can now submit documents to universities in three ways: through government services, during a personal visit to the university, or by mail;
- Applicants will not be able to withdraw or change their consent for admission on the day the admission orders are published;
- University graduates can enter the university through internal examinations (entrance tests) only if they continue their studies in this field;
- Procedures for distributing and setting target quotas – instead of a percentage, a specific number of places, target training clients, universities, forms of training and educational programs are specified;
- Physics is included in the list of mandatory entrance exams for 39 majors;
- Foreign students will be able to apply without SNILS through the ruID mobile application and take internal exams only if they have not passed the Unified State Exam in the last four years;
- Citizens of Belarus may not take the Unified State Examination if they have the results of the Central Examination and the Central Examination;
- Instead of a paper medical certificate of form 086/u, an electronic medical certificate (196) was introduced.
Benefits upon acceptance
Applicants can enter universities without exams if they:
- Winners and prize-winners of the All-Russian Olympiad for schoolchildren;
- Gold medalists at the Olympic, Paralympic and Deaf Olympic Games;
- World or European champions in any sport;
- Members of the Russian teams of the International Olympiads in general education subjects (upon admission to specialized areas).
It is possible to apply based on the results of internal admission tests conducted by the university without passing the unified state test:
- Heroes of the Russian Federation and recipients of three Orders of Courage;
- Children of health workers who died of COVID-19 while on duty (upon admission to medical and pharmaceutical programmes);
- Children of SVO participants, including those killed, wounded and sick while performing military service duties.
Under a separate quota with passing the Unified State Examination (minimum score is sufficient) and entrance examinations, the following can be accepted:
- Participants of SVO who are mobilized into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, who have concluded a contract for voluntary participation, participants of SVO of military formations, bodies and armed forces of the DPRK and LPR, as well as their children;
- Children of military personnel, employees of federal bodies, internal affairs bodies of the Russian Federation, employees of the criminal system of the Russian Federation, who were sent to other states and who participated in hostilities while performing their official duties therein.
Status with admission in 2026
There have been reports in the media that sometimes the number of Olympiad winners among applicants is greater than the number of places in universities. However, the Chairman of the Council of Deans of Universities of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Dean of the St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, Alexei Demidov, called for the situation not to be exaggerated, explaining that we are only talking about some specialties in many universities and about admission campaigns in recent years, according to reports. Interfax.
Boris Ilyukhin, chief researcher at the Center for Economics of Continuing Education at the Presidential Academy, noted that in such situations, universities independently decide what to do: grant privileged admission rights to a number of Olympiad winners or provide extra-budget places with university funding.
For example, the press service of MIPT stated that they strive to keep the ratio of applicants for the Olympiad and the results of employment in positions equal. In the 2026 admissions campaign, the university has adjusted the benefits offering rules in order to maintain balance, according to reports Business FM.
According to businessman and HSE educator Alexei Karlov, many Olympic winners and merit holders actually apply for budget-financed places.
— In this case, an applicant who has passed the Unified State Examination well, but has no preferential reasons or victories in admission competitions, can be advised to choose as many universities as possible for submitting documents. You can also choose regional universities or educational institutions that are not the most famous. Some regional universities have hybrid educational formats that allow you not to be constantly in the city, but to come, for example, to sessions or attend part of lectures online. You can always consider paid branches, although the number of places in them is gradually decreasing and there is also some competition. The trend towards increased competition for budget places exists not only this year: the situation now is not the most difficult, but in a year or two it may become more difficult, says Karloff.
However, the rector of MSTU “STANKIN” Boris Badalkin in a conversation with VM emphasized that the scale of the problem is exaggerated. The university admission plan is determined annually on the basis of the Education Law. The distribution is carried out according to specialization by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, taking into account the needs of the relevant sectors of the economy.
— The total number of budget places this year exceeded 620 thousand. If you look at the number of people who can participate in budget places because of winning the Olympics, that number is seven to eight thousand people a year. “Therefore, it is completely wrong to say that the winners of the Olympiad can significantly influence the overall image of the competition and the results of success,” the VM interlocutor emphasizes. – In addition, the winners of the Olympiads, as a rule, are concentrated in major universities on “cutting-edge” specialties and educational programs.
The rector said: In some universities, where there is great interest among Olympiad winners in exact sciences, some benefits are canceled or reduced:
– Universities have the right to choose which Olympiad winners will be registered and which will not, so that the balance between them and ordinary applicants who enter through a general competition, after passing the Unified State Examination, is approximately equal.
As for preferential categories of applicants, there are separate quotas for them. The expert emphasized that, as a rule, they are not recruited:
— Places not occupied by preferential categories in the general competition are distributed. Therefore, by definition, there cannot be many applicants for preferential categories.
The VM interlocutor added that target quotas are determined by government decree, and we are talking about specializations that are not “broad.”
“Therefore, it is incorrect to say that preferential categories of applicants, Olympiad winners or targeted applicants occupy all budget places,” Badalkin emphasized.
According to him, the situation with admission to universities is little different from last year, and the situation last year is little different from the previous year. The changes that occur are announced in advance and are not “revolutionary.”
Entering university is a difficult stage in every student’s life. How to pass it as comfortably as possible, this is what Irina Lisitsyna, career guidance specialist at the Center for Future Professions, said in an interview with Evening Moscow.