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A total of 9,551 young people registered to take the University Entrance Exam in the Basque Country in 2009, according to Eustat data. A total of 8,998 passed the exam (94%), with an average pass mark of 6.7, close to a "B". Furthermore, 57% of the students took the exam in Basque, which was two percentage points higher than in the previous year.

7,874 students registered for the June exam session and 97% of them passed, while 1,740 registered for the July session and 80% passed the entrance exam.

Out of the total number of the candidates, 4,196 were men and 5,355 women, i.e., six out of each ten students registered for the exam were women. With regards to the results, 93% of the male candidates passed the test, compared to 95% of the females.

Furthermore, the candidates finished their Upper Secondary studies with an average mark of 7, and after taking the exam, had an overall mark of 6.7 (0.3 percentage points lower). This decrease was across the board in all options.

With respect to the ownership of the centre, even though the percentage of students who passed the exam was higher among those that came from private centres (95%) than among those from public centres (93%), the difference was insignificant.

Higher pass rate in June

When analysing the results over the last five years, it can be seen that the pass rate in June was usually clearly higher than in July, by a difference of between 15 and 20 percentage points.

It is also noteworthy, in keeping with the trend over recent years, that the pass rate for the female candidates was higher and the marks better than in the case of the male candidates, although the difference between both sexes is gradually disappearing.

As far as the ownership of the centre is concerned, in general, there was a higher pass rate among students from private centres, with the exception of some years, although the gap between both types of centres is currently very small.

With regards to the results, even though there were some differences in terms of sex and of ownership of the centre, they were similar and rather high, as the lowest mark in recent years was 6.5.

Half of the male students opted for the Scientific-Technical option for the university entrance exam.

In terms of upper secondary options, 2,984 of the successful candidates took the Scientific-Technical option, 2,723 took Social Sciences, 2,450 opted for Health Sciences, 643 for Humanities and only 171 took Arts.

Differences were noted in the options selected by the male and female students for the exam. In fact, while 50% of the male students took the Scientific-Technical option, 60% of the female students chose, almost 50-50, the Health Science and Social Science options.