Over 5,000 students sit for medical entrance exam in Brussels
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Loading... - Irma Achen
- 30 Aug 2024
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Over 5,200 aspiring students gathered early on Wednesday at the Brussels Expo for the second annual entrance contest for medical and dental studies, organized by the Academy of Research and Higher Education (ARES). This year's turnout included 4,150 candidates for medicine and 1,055 for dentistry, showing a significant increase from last year's numbers of 3,164 and 686, respectively.
The entrance contest, introduced in 2023, replaced the previous entrance exam that had been in place since 2017. Unlike traditional exams, this contest does not have a pass or fail system but rather ranks candidates based on their performance, admitting only a set number of top scorers determined by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation government (FWB). For this year, the competition is intense, with only 1,520 spots available—1,346 for medicine and 174 for dentistry.
Candidates must rank among the top to secure a place, with their results ordered from highest to lowest based on their average test score. Additionally, to limit the number of non-resident students who may train in Belgium but practice elsewhere, a cap restricts non-residents to 15% of the student body. Despite this, 1,916 non-residents, making up 37% of all candidates, registered for this year's contest.
The examination, which spans from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, challenges students with 80 multiple-choice questions across six subjects, including biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. These questions are divided into two categories: "knowledge and understanding of scientific subjects" and "communication and critical analysis of information." Among the subjects, the physics test is particularly dreaded, often recording the highest number of failures even among the top-ranked candidates.
The introduction of this competitive examination followed an agreement between the FWB and the federal government in 2022, aimed at improving the quality of medical and dental training by managing the number of students admitted. When discussing the implementation of this new system, Education Minister Valérie Glatigny noted the challenges posed by the large number of enrolments, emphasizing the need for such a filter to maintain the quality of education.
