CISIA currently delivers around 400,000 entrance examinations per year for around 250,000 students. The tests are adopted by degree courses in any field.

The test was introduced in Italy in the mid-1980s by the Milan Polytechnic. The experience was taken up by the faculties of Engineering and Architecture of other universities and led to the creation of an Inter-University Commission for the Admission Test to the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (known as the National Test Commission and composed of expert lecturers from the various Italian universities).

The Ministry of Education and Universities, while introducing limited access for some faculties, developed on its own initiative the entrance test for almost all courses. For Architecture, it incorporated the test structure developed by the National Test Commission in its entirety and recognised its reliability and quality.

In June 2005, that experience, on the initiative of the Engineering and Architecture Conferences, was made structural through the establishment of the Inter-University Centre for Access to Engineering and Architecture Schools (CISIA), to which almost all Italian engineering and architecture faculties adhered.

In January 2010, CISIA became a non-profit inter-university consortium: Consorzio Interuniversitario Sistemi Integrati per l'Accesso, retaining the acronym CISIA, its characteristics and aims.

 

Milestones

  • 2005 establishment of the Inter-University Centre for Access to Engineering and Architecture Schools and launch of the national test for access to engineering study courses
  • 2005 - 2008 national admission tests for courses with limited access in architecture
  • 2008 entrance tests for degree courses in economics and business sciences
  • 2009 science entrance tests for local (biotechnology and biological sciences) and open access courses
  • 2010 Cisia becomes Consorzio Interuniversitario Sistemi Integrati per l'Accesso
  • 2012 TOLC-I CISIA Online Test for engineering and technical-scientific courses
  • 2013 TOLC-E CISIA Online Test for Economics and Courses in Statistics and Social Sciences
  • 2013 admission tests for limited access courses in pharmacy and pharmaceutical chemistry and technology
  • 2016 TOLC-F CISIA Online Test in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology and for Science, Technology and Exercise Science
  • 2018 experimental tests for degree courses in agricultural sciences, technologies and techniques
  • 2018 TOLC-B CISIA Online Test in Biology, Biotechnology and Science
  • 2018 TOLC-S CISIA Online Test in Science
  • 2018 English TOLC-I and English TOLC-E
  • 2019 TOLC-SU CISIA Online Test for Humanities
  • 2019 TOLC-AV CISIA Online Test for Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
  • 2019 English TOLC-.F (English language version of TOLC-F)
  • 2020 TOLC@Home (online version of all TOLCs)
  • 2021 experimental tests for degree courses in psychology disciplines
  • 2022 TOLC-PSI for psychological disciplines
  • 2023 TOLC-MED and VET for degree courses in medicine and surgery, dentistry and dental prosthetics, and veterinary medicine
  • 2023 TOLC-LP for vocational degree courses
  • 2024 TOLC-SPS for access to degree courses in the area of political and social sciences.