“My hands were shaking, my mind was racing, my heart was pumping, this moment meant so much to me, this is the moment that determines the rest of my life. Results were in, my jaw drops, I passed! An immense feeling of satisfaction and excessive joy came with the news I just received!” Senior Raquel Osorio when asked how she felt when she was seeing the results of the CES application, she merely had one step to pass… the interview.

CES University is located in Medellín. This university majors mainly in medicine but there are other careers you can study there. If you’re interested in joining the medicine program there are two steps for the admission. The first step is the admission test that consists of three parts; general knowledge, math and comprehensive reading. Once you pass the exam, you have an interview with the deans of the university and they determine if you are qualified for the program or you have to repeat this process in six months.

The preparation
“I had a two-hour class every Wednesday from June to April in order to pass the exam, I had this class with many of my classmates who were also interested in studying medicine in CES university and our tutor was this lady who declared that every pupil who had the class with her who has taken the exam,  had passed, and simply one failed the interview,” Mariana Calle, TCS senior said.

Students interested in studying medicine in CES university start studying approximately a year prior to the exam and take general knowledge classes and math classes since those two are the hardest parts in the three-part exam that consists of general knowledge and math, as previously mentioned and it also contains comprehensive reading.

“You can’t study general knowledge since you can study and learn over one hundred paintings and be asked nothing about art, it is all based on luck and how much culture you have. ” Valentina Jaramillo, TCS student alumni and current CES student, declared.

It is certainly important to have proper knowledge on Colombia because the exam writer is truly passionate about Colombia’s history and he’s your average Colombian ‘José’.

Writing the test
After getting out of the exam you have a sense of if you passed or you did not.

” After getting out of the exam I didn’t wish to talk to anyone, not even my parents because It seemed like I did a dreadful job, certainly I failed,” Calle Stated.

The exam is about 140 questions long and its duration is about three hours. The test results come out the day after the exam is taken and about 100 students pass the exam each year out of about 300 that take it.

“This year 9 seniors presented the exam and only 5 passed it,” Osorio stated.

“When I presented the exam the year I graduated, 10 students from my grade took it and I was the only one who didn’t pass, I took it 6 months later and I passed, I’m now in the first semester of medicine in CES university,” stated Isabela Isaza, 2017 TCS graduate.

The Interview
After being notified that you passed the exam, you get assigned a group in alphabetical order and you get assigned a time in which you get to do your interview. When you get to the interview you are given a paper and a pencil and you are required to fill a paper and tell your life story, then you are passed one by one to the dean’s office and are interviewed by the various deans and teachers that have the most power at the university, they ask a variety of questions, not many but very specific, some of the questions you can expect to receive are; what do your parents do for living, why do you want to study medicine, have you been in one of their pre-med courses, etc.

“When I get nervous, the back of my neck gets red, the interviewers noticed it, pointed it out to me and laughed it off, my interview kept going but I wasn’t as nervous after that,” Pablo Montaño CES student said.

“All the stress and hard work are worth it since once you pass you will be studying the career of your dreams, it is worth it trust me,” Jaramillo stated.