Comment by lohankin

The target acceptance rate was rumored to be 2% - which roughly corresponded to the percentage of Jewish population in USSR. I was one of those Jewish applicants in 1973 :) Exam was conducted in a separate room. When in doubt, the criteria for identifying Jews among all applicants was funny (in retrospect): they tried to guess by the last name. But some names are more "typical" than others, so the criteria was not 100% accurate. They preferred to err on the side of caution, and some perfectly Russian people were put in the same exam room with the Jews. This is my recollection.