As a result of the new National Core Curriculum (NAT) that came into effect in 2020, a significant difference emerged in the secondary and advanced mathematics curriculum. In 2024, students who had already studied according to the new NAT during their high school years entered higher education. This resulted in a significant change in the knowledge level of incoming students. To effectively manage the new situation, we introduced differentiated education in 2024 at the BME Institute of Mathematics: Students who had a stable knowledge of the previous secondary curriculum began their studies at level A, while for those who did not, we recommended completing the first-semester calculus at level B. Level B supplemented the missing knowledge and strengthened calculation skills, while the student also mastered the material of university calculus.

To decide at what level we recommend that students start their calculus studies, we developed an adaptive input test, which was administered during the registration week preceding the fall semester and the first week of classes. From 2025, the mathematics test was supplemented with a reading comprehension task and, in some faculties, an adaptive physics input test.

The input tests not only helped us decide what level of course to recommend to our students, but their results provided a detailed picture of the input parameters and enabled the creation of a predictive model.

In the first phase of the tests, we mapped knowledge of basic concepts and numeracy skills. This allowed us to obtain information from a sample of a few thousand in 2024 and 2025 on how stable the knowledge of the 9th-10th grade curriculum is furthermore, it was possible to compare the results of the two measurements. We found that the shortcomings in the early years curriculum significantly hinder students' progress in their studies, and parallel catch-up is time-consuming, thus burdensome and further complicates the progress of students who are already struggling.

In order to solve the early replenishment of missing knowledge and to help the transition from high school to university, in 2025, we launched mathematics and physics courses for students in grades 11-13 under the name MIssion Posible. Our idea is that this type of education will help students arrive at university with the knowledge necessary to complete their university studies. The course will be implemented in part-time study, over 18 weeks, in 4*45-minute weekly, with both face-to-face and online classes. By November 2025, nearly 150 high school students joined our program.

When designing the courses, we took into account the results of modern learning theory research: both recall learning and gamification are essential elements of our program. To address significantly different knowledge levels, we developed different levels of learning materials with the support of artificial intelligence. Customizing our adaptive input test, already proven at the university and used for differentiation, seems promising for establishing levels.

In our presentation, we will present the input test, its structure, and, based on the results obtained, why we consider it particularly important to acquire the knowledge, necessary to begin university studies, during high school.

We examine how strong the result of the input test was as a predictor of the success of university studies, we compare the results of the past two years, we present modern data analysis methods that can facilitate data-based decision-making. We talk about the MIssion Possible program, the development of the related curriculum system, and future plans.