What are the PCE exams like, depending on the University and the city where I will study?

If you are a foreigner, and you want to access a Spanish University, the first thing you should know is that the exams you have to take are called PCE (Specific Competency Exams). The second most important consideration is that the subjects you have to take for these exams are defined by 3 variables:

According to the province in Spain where you want to study.
According to the degree you want to study
According to your educational background. If you are a citizen of the EU, have completed the International Baccalaureate (IB), or have an educational alliance.

Let’s show you how it works:

Estructura de la PCE según la modalidad elegida

PCE VOLUNTARIA

The PCE voluntaria implies that you do not need to take the exam if with your baccalaureate final score (out of 10) you can directly get into the university you want. In case you wish or need to raise your score (up to 14), you can voluntarily take several optional subjects and among them, the 2 best grades obtained will be weighted.

Who is it for?

You will be able to take the PCE VOLUNTARIA exams if you are going to study a university degree in Galicia or if you come from a European Union Baccalaureate, an International Baccalaureate or come from a country which has an agreement with UNED.

PCE MODALIDAD BACHILLERATO

You must take 4 subjects:

1 core subject: to be chosen between History of Spain, Spanish Language and Literature, and a foreign language (English or French). If you are already familiar with the English language, we advise you to take this subject.
1 core subject according to the Spanish Baccalaureate: to be chosen between Mathematics, Mathematics Applied to Social Sciences, Latin or Fundamentals of Art.
2 Optional subjects: The two with the highest weighting according to the degree you want to study.

Who is it for?

You will have to take the PCE EBAU STRUCTURE if you want to study in:

Community of Madrid
Autonomous community Castile and Leon

PCE ESTRUCTURA LIBRE

In order to obtain the highest score, you will freely choose 4 subjects. This means that there aren’t any compulsory subjects, neither core ones nor related to the Spanish baccalaureate. The only thing you have to take into account is which subjects score the highest for the University degree you want to study. Generally speaking, we recommend that at least 3 of the 4 subjects should be weighted 0.2.

You can find more information in this post.

Who is it for?

You will have to take the PCE FREE STRUCTURE if you want to study in:

Valencian Community
Region of Murcia
Extramadura Community

PCE EBAU

There are usually 6 subjects to be weighted at the university and you need to, al least, take 4 subjects:

3 core subjects: History of Spain, Spanish Language and Literature, and a foreign language (English or French).
1 core subject according to the Spanish Baccalaureate: to be chosen between Mathematics, Mathematics Applied to Social Sciences, Latin or Fundamentals of Art.
Additionally, and to reach the 14 points required by the university, you will have to take 2 optional subjects that will help you to weigh and raise your final exam score. As in the rest of the cases, we will choose the 2 optional subjects that have the highest weight.

Who is it for?

You will have to take the PCE EBAU STRUCTURE if you want to study in:

Andalusia
Aragon
Asturias
Canary Islands
Cantabria
Castilla-La Mancha
Catalonia
Balearic Island
La Rioja
Navarre
The Basque Country

PCE courses

List of PCE subjects by field of knowledge:

What are the weights?

The weightings are determined by the university you are applying to. To find out which subjects are best weighted for you, you need to contact the university and inquire about the subjects that have the most weight for your specific case, as well as the cut-off grade for the desired course. This will allow you to determine the minimum score you need to achieve in order to gain admission. You can also refer to the previous year’s list of weightings to guide your subject choices. In this post, you will find the weighting tables of all Spanish public universities, which we update annually. This will help you gain orientation and understand the minimum grade you need to attain for admission. In another post, we explain the weighting system with an example for the Valencian Community.

Educational alliance

As shown in the above chart, everyone who has studied the baccalaureate in a country that has an educational alliance with UNED, can validate their score (which will be up to 10) and can raise it up to 14 (the highest score of the Spanish university) by taking two optional exams according to those subjects that have more weight for the degree they want to study. Those who come from a country that does not have an Educational alliance will have to take the PCE exams (between 4 and 6 subjects).

In this post, you can find out whether your country has an Educational alliance with UNED.

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