DIM University Entrance Exam (Azerbaijan)DİM

Overview

The State Examination Center (Dövlət İmtahan Mərkəzi, DIM) runs Azerbaijan's centralized undergraduate (bakalavriat) entrance exam, taken after secondary school. A single exam result decides admission to Azerbaijan's state and private universities, since universities do not run their own separate entrance tests. DIM also runs the country's secondary-school leaving exam as part of the same sitting for current-year graduates, and operates the electronic systems applicants use to register, choose a specialty (programme), and view results.

Who can apply

Current-year graduates of general secondary education (grade 11) sit the entrance exam as part of finishing school, registering through their school. Graduates from earlier years, and other holders of a secondary-school certificate, can also register directly with DIM to compete for university admission. Registration for both groups runs through an online "Personal Cabinet" an applicant creates on DIM's applicant portal.

Exam pattern

Admission is decided in two stages for most specialties.

Stage 1 (compulsory, same for every applicant): the language of instruction (Azerbaijani or Russian), a foreign language, and Mathematics, each marked out of 100, for a maximum stage-1 score of 300. For current-year school graduates, this stage also serves as the secondary-school leaving exam.

Stage 2 (by major group): higher-education specialties are grouped into five major groups; an applicant sits the second-stage subjects for the group their target specialty belongs to. Each subject is marked out of 100 and then weighted by a correlation coefficient before being added up, for a maximum stage-2 score of 400 (except Group V, which has no stage 2).

A specialty's exact group, and any specialty-specific ability or portfolio test (for example for music and arts programmes), is published by DIM alongside the admission rules each year.

Marking and results

Each subject is marked out of 100. For Groups I-IV, a candidate's overall score is the stage-1 score (maximum 300) plus the weighted stage-2 score (maximum 400), for an overall maximum of 700; Group V applicants are ranked on the stage-1 score alone (maximum 300). DIM sets a minimum score each year for admission to state-funded ("dövlət sifarişli") places and a separate, generally lower, minimum for paid ("ödənişli") places; recent cycles have used an overall minimum of around 200 (with a minimum of 100 on stage 2) for state-funded places, while some paid-place specialties have used lower minimums, reported as low as 150 overall. Exact thresholds are set per specialty and per year, so check the current year's confirmed list on DIM's site rather than assuming a figure repeats.

Important dates

Dates move every year and are confirmed by DIM shortly before each stage. For the 2026 undergraduate cycle, reported dates included: stage-1 registration from 18 February to 5 March; registration for Group I-IV stage-2 mock exams from 2 to 22 April; an additional foreign-language and language-of-instruction exam sitting on 19 April; the Azerbaijani/Russian language exam on 3 May; a mock exam on 10 May; the stage-2 entrance exam for Groups II and III on 24 May; and the stage-2 entrance exam for Groups I and IV on 7 June. Treat these as illustrative of the typical spring-to-early-summer shape of the cycle, and confirm the current year's exact calendar on dim.gov.az before relying on any specific date.

How to apply

An applicant creates (or reuses) a Personal Cabinet on DIM's applicant portal, then registers for the exam stage(s) and major group that match their target specialties. Participation generally requires a fee paid into the Personal Cabinet, which is deducted once registration is confirmed; under a presidential decree, first-time applicants who are current-year graduates of general secondary-education institutions have this fee covered by the state budget, as do several special categories of applicant (including children of martyrs, IDP-status applicants, and applicants with certain disabilities). After results are published, applicants use the same portal to submit a ranked list of university specialties they wish to be considered for.

After the exam

Once stage-1 (and, where it applies, stage-2) results are published, applicants submit a ranked list of specialty preferences through their Personal Cabinet. DIM's placement system compares each applicant's score against the competition for every specialty on their list and places them into the highest-ranked specialty their score and the available seats allow. Seats are split between state-funded places, where tuition is covered by the government, and paid ("contract") places; an applicant who clears a specialty's paid-place minimum but not its state-funded minimum can still be placed into a paid seat. An applicant who disagrees with their exam result can lodge an appeal with DIM's Appeals Commission within the period DIM announces after results are released; appeal hearings are reported to run online, with the applicant choosing to take part by video call or phone.

Preparation tips

• Confirm which of the five major groups your target specialties fall under before choosing which stage-2 subjects to prepare, since each group tests a fixed set of three weighted subjects.

• Register for and sit any mock ("sınaq") exam DIM offers before the real sitting, since recent cycles have built a dedicated mock-exam window into the calendar for this purpose.

• Track both the state-funded and paid-place minimum scores for your target specialties each year, since applying for both the free and paid form of the same specialty can be a reasonable strategy if your score may fall short of the state-funded threshold.

• Keep your Personal Cabinet login secure and check it regularly during the registration, results, and specialty-preference windows, since all of these steps run through that one account.

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