Student Admission System for Warsaw University

Warsaw University is the largest Polish university, the second largest higher education institution in Poland. The university comprises 18 faculties and 24 inter-departamental units, and the number of students exceeds 58 thousand. It offers courses of studies in 33 fields of arts and sciences. In the last years the number of candidates applying each year for university places exceeded 40 thousand. The candidates come from various parts of Poland, many from cities laying in a long distance from War-saw. Until 1996 all admission activities were carried out locally by faculties. Then a central admission procedure (registration and assessment) with some computer-based support was devel-oped by the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Mechanics. Other faculties were encouraged to join on volun-tary basis. Two years ago for the first time candidates could register remotly using a new web-based software application. This software has been used since then and improved every year. However it will soon have to undergo major revisions due to a new system of maturity examinations that is to be in-troduced starting from 2005, which will serve as a basis for the admission procedures used by higher education institutions in Poland. The purpose of this paper is to present the organizational and technical aspects of the computer based systems for students admission used in Warsaw University over the last decade and in particular describe requirements for the new system to be deployed in 2005, which may become a national standard in Poland