Russian USE and olympiads as instruments for university admission selection

The paper considers efficiency of the Russian Unified State Exam (USE, or EGE, Russian version of SAT), and results of «olympiads» — national students’ contests in economics, mathematics as predictors of ICEF HSE students’ academic achievements. Most courses in ICEF are taught in English, but USE in English is not a significant predictor. USE in mathematics and Russian are significant predictors, but only USE in Russian is significant for the probability of drop-out. Olympiads’ winners demonstrate substantially better performance than other students.