The recruitment process at the University of Gdańsk is underway. At most faculties, lists of candidates have been announced and the acceptance of documents has begun. Members of the recruitment committees at the Faculty of Languages and the Faculty of Social Sciences talk about their work and the most common mistakes made by candidates.
Julia Bereszczyńska: - What do members of the admissions committee do? What does your job entail?
Mikołaj Janiak: - We enter data into the system and verify documents. In the first place, when registration started, we verified how the process was going. Then, when the list of candidates was announced, our task was to verify the data entered, for example, scans confirming participation in Olympiads or attendance at a sports class. We checked that everything was correctly entered into the system and then announced the list of candidates. We also had to decide how many people to put on the so-called reserve list. There are different limits, and admission thresholds, for each course. For journalism, it is 50 people, but we decided to qualify another 200 people for the reserve list. In the case of sociology, there are 100 places, and of course, a reserve list has also been created here.
- What are the most common mistakes made by candidates in the documents they submit?
Aleksandra Hołomej: - When candidates send documents by post, they sometimes fail to attach some document. They also often misspell their school-leaving exams results. Surprisingly, there are also mistakes in personal data, most often in the city of birth, where the place of residence is entered.
Mikołaj Janiak: - Most often, candidates do not provide original documents or notarised copies. Sometimes candidates bring photocopies of documents that we cannot accept. Sometimes a person has entered the data incorrectly into the system - and we cannot increase the saved results, we can only lower them.
- What should candidates pay the most attention to when recruiting for university?
Aleksandra Hołomej: - Certainly on the correctness of the entry of matric results. If the declared results are lower, nothing changes after the list of candidates is announced. On the other hand, if the points are higher than on the matriculation certificate, we have to remove the points from the system. Fortunately, this does not happen very often. Another such recurring error is the failure to document participation in Olympiads and sports classes. Candidates often fail to enter scans of these documents and, unfortunately, if these scans are not present, we cannot award points for this. These are the only documents that candidates enter themselves.
Mikolaj Janiak: - I also have a piece of advice to read exactly what is written in the system and not to be afraid to ask questions. You can always call us or write to us, and we are there to try to help solve the problem because some situations are exceptional.
- When is the busiest time for recruitment committees? From your observations, is it right after the list of candidates is announced or is it more towards the end of the deadline for submitting documents?
Aleksandra Holomej: - Today is the third day of accepting documents at our committee, and the frenzy has actually been there since the beginning. Our committee is unique because we run a very large number of courses at the Faculty of Languages and we serve several thousand candidates. Our committee is a faculty committee, so the queues are with us every day.
Mikołaj Janiak: - On July 17, we announced the list of candidates at 11 a.m. and in fact, on the first day, a few people had already come by 1 p.m. But the biggest siege was on the second day after the list was announced.
Dr Jacek Mianowski: - Last year, by comparison, there was a surge of those who wanted to submit their documents immediately, whereas this year the traffic is very evenly distributed.
- Thank you for the interview and all your valuable tips for candidates.
