Chile has a college entrance exam similar to the SAT or ACT in the United States. In Chile, prospective university students take Prueba de Selección Universitaria or PSU test.
This is the only test used to determine hundreds of thousands of Chilean students’ academic futures.
The results of this test determine who is accepted to which universities, what fields they can study, and which scholarships are rewarded.
Both the public and private universities in Chile use the PSU to determine admissions.
The PSU test consists of four parts: Language and Communication, Mathematics, History and Social Sciences, and Sciences. The last two are optional and a student can take them based on what they want to apply to study at the university.
The PSU is a multiple choice test that is electronically graded.
The universities in Chile are very competitive so students put a lot of emphasis on getting good scores on the PSU to aid their admissions. Students will even retake the test with the hopes of improving their score.