we have something very similar here in my country that we call "vestibular", I dont know if there is a proper translation to that, but it's some sort of contest where we have a huge list of subjects to study throughout the year (it happens annually). When the time comes, we have to sit through 5 hours resolving 80/90 questions divided between exact, human and biological sciences (some of those picks 2 days of exams, one with 45 exact science questions and other with 45 biological/human sciences questions, each day with 5 hours to finish)
That's pretty much the only way to get in college around here, only exception for private ones, but they're way too expensive for most of our people to afford (still you can get discounts up to 100% depending on your score in those contests I mentioned). Yet their quality are usually lower than public institutions average