Kobak Felvételi

The Hungarian secondary school entrance exam, explained for English-speaking parents

Written by Domonkos · Last updated:

Hungary runs a single national written exam for entry to its selective secondary schools. It is called the központi írásbeli felvételi, it lasts under two hours, and for most families it is the largest single component of the admission decision. If you did not grow up in this system, almost nothing about it is guessable — including the fact that registering for the exam and applying to schools are two entirely separate acts, months apart.

What is the central written entrance exam?

A single national paper in Hungarian and maths, sat on one Saturday in January, used by selective secondary schools to rank applicants.

Every child applying to a school that requires it sits the same paper at 10:00 on the same Saturday morning, at an exam school of the family’s choosing. The papers are set by Oktatási Hivatal, the Hungarian Education Authority, and marked to one official scheme. The result is a number out of 100 that travels with the child to every school they apply to.

Not every school requires it — many rank applicants on primary school grades alone. But the academically selective gimnázium almost always does.

Who sits it, and at what age

Children in year 4, year 6 or year 8, depending on which entry point their chosen school offers. Three separate papers exist.

Hungarian primary school (általános iskola) runs to year 8, but the selective gimnázium system has three entry points, and children compete at whichever one their target school offers:

Each has its own paper, so a year 4 pupil never sees the same questions as a year 8 pupil. A child may sit the exam once per cycle, with no resit for a better score.

What the exam day looks like

Hungarian for 45 minutes, a compulsory 15-minute break, then maths for 45 minutes. Fifty points per paper, one hundred in total.

The order is fixed and national: Hungarian first, then the break, then mathematics. Schools ask families to arrive 30 minutes early, because you have to find the child’s education ID number on a printed list to locate their room, and in a crowded lobby that takes longer than you expect.

What you may take in

Blue or black non-erasable pen, pencil for drawings, and for maths a ruler, compass and protractor. No calculator, no dictionary.

For the Hungarian paper, no aids of any kind. For maths, ruler, compass and protractor only — which means no calculator. Everything except drawings must be in blue or black non-erasable ink; no highlighters, no correction fluid. A photo ID is required.

What the papers actually test

Reading, writing and reasoning rather than memorised syllabus content. Past papers going back to 2001 are published free by the Education Authority.

The Hungarian paper is not literature: it tests reading comprehension, spelling, grammar and written expression, and the maths paper rewards reasoning rather than recall. That surprises parents from systems built on syllabus coverage. The Education Authority states that neither the number nor the difficulty of the tasks should come as a surprise, recommends past papers as preparation, and publishes every one since 2001 with its marking scheme. The raw material is therefore free and public, and what a course sells is sequencing, marking, pace and mock exams.

Two applications, not one

Registering for the exam in December and applying to schools in February are separate steps. Neither one stands in for the other.

This trips up Hungarian families too, so it is worth being blunt. In early December you register your child for the exam, directly with the school where they will sit it, on that school’s form. In February you apply to secondary schools, on different paperwork, through your child’s primary school.

You may sit the exam at any school that organises it, and every school requiring it must accept the score. The venue list is published in November; choose whichever is easiest to reach on a Saturday morning, because a school’s reputation has no bearing on marking that follows a national key.

How schools turn the score into an offer

If a school counts the central written exam, it must be worth at least half the total. Any oral counts for 25% at most.

A school may rank applicants on primary school results alone, on those plus the written exam, or on those plus an oral as well. Only heavily oversubscribed schools may hold an oral, and never without also requiring the written exam.

Where the written exam counts, it must be at least 50% of the total obtainable admission score, and an oral at most 25%. Marks brought from primary school therefore cannot exceed half, and behaviour and diligence grades cannot be counted at all. The familiar 50 / 25 / 25 split is common practice rather than law: each school publishes its own arithmetic in its prospectus (felvételi tájékoztató).

Why your preference order cannot hurt you

Schools never see your ranking. The national matching algorithm places your child at the highest-listed school that both ranked and had room.

You may apply to as many schools and programmes as you like. You list them in your own order on a single sheet that goes to the Education Authority, not to the schools, and schools rank the applicants they would take without knowing where they sit on anybody’s list.

Matching is then done centrally, and the design guarantees your ordering cannot cost your child a place: they are admitted to the highest school on their own list that ranked them within capacity. Putting an ambitious school first does not endanger the safe school below it. One window in April lets you reorder, right after the provisional rankings appear.

The 2026/27 cycle, step by step

  • 1 December 2026 — register for the exam with the school where your child will sit it
  • 23 January 2027, 10:00 — the central written exam, a Saturday, nationwide
  • 3 February 2027, 14:00 — replacement sitting, documented no-fault absence only
  • 12 February 2027 — exam schools issue the Értékelő lap, the only official record of the score
  • 22 February 2027 — school applications and the preference sheet are submitted
  • 1–19 March 2027 — oral exams and aptitude tests, where held
  • 22 March 2027 — schools publish provisional ranked lists
  • 6–8 April 2027 — the one window for reordering your preferences
  • 29 April 2027 — the final matched list is produced
  • 7 May 2027 — acceptances and rejections go out
  • 24–25 June 2027 — enrolment

A note on these dates

They come from the published draft of the 2026/27 school-year decree, so treat them as expected rather than final. Oktatási Hivatal publishes the binding calendar in late summer or early autumn, and we update this page when it appears — check oktatas.hu before acting on any single date.

If your child’s first language is not Hungarian

There is no English version of the paper and no dictionary. The Hungarian paper assumes a native-level command of written Hungarian.

This is the honest constraint, and better faced in September than in January. The Hungarian paper is a language competence test written for children schooled in Hungarian; the maths paper is less language-heavy but still entirely in Hungarian, with dense word problems.

Adjustments — extra time, familiar equipment, exemption from the assessment of specific items — are granted only on the basis of a valid expert opinion for pupils with special educational needs (SNI) or learning and behavioural difficulties (BTMN), applied for together with the December exam registration. We are not aware of any separate provision based on a pupil’s first language. If your child holds an expert opinion of any kind, raise it in writing with the exam school early: the decision is taken before the exam and cannot be revisited.

Exemption from the exam requirement itself can only be granted by the school your child applies to, never by the exam school. And if your child is at an international or bilingual school that admits on its own terms, check whether it uses this system at all.

What parents actually have to do

Four things: choose an exam venue and register by December, apply to schools in February, check the ranked lists, then enrol in June.

Read the admissions prospectus of every school on your list during the autumn: it states whether the exam is required and how points are calculated. Pick the venue in November, register by 1 December, and after the exam it is paperwork and waiting.

Preparation is the other half of the job — our courses are on the courses page, and a separate page answers what English-speaking parents ask us most.

Frequently asked questions

Does every Hungarian secondary school require this exam?
No. Schools may rank applicants on primary school grades alone. Selective gimnázium programmes usually require the central written exam, and a school may only hold an oral round if it also requires the written exam. Check each school prospectus.
Can my child sit the exam more than once?
No. There is one sitting per cycle and no resit for a better mark. A replacement date in early February exists only for a documented absence that was not the family fault, and the exam school head decides on it.
Does it matter which school we sit the exam at?
Only for convenience. Every paper is marked to the same national marking scheme, and every school that requires the exam must accept the score wherever it was sat. Choose the venue that is easiest to reach on a Saturday morning.
When do we find out the score?
The papers and marking schemes are published by the Education Authority on the day of the exam, in practice from 13:00. The official result is the Értékelő lap issued by the exam school, expected by 12 February 2027 in this cycle.
Can we see the marked paper?
Yes. The exam school must provide a day for viewing the corrected paper within eight days of the exam, and you may photograph it. An objection can only be raised on the ground that the marking departed from the official key, by 16:00 on the first working day after the viewing.
How many schools can we apply to?
As many as you like. There is no limit on schools or programmes, each school gets its own application form, and your order of preference is hidden from the schools. The order you choose cannot cause your child to be rejected.