The admission policy to the university, linked to proceedings that regulate the acess to this level, is an essential component of the higher education policy. It's the result of the relation between claimants and public power in a particular temporal and spacial context, and includes technical, political and social aspects that have to be considered all together. The author remarks the historic character of the admission policy; it's not only the result of a technical calculation but the product of the articulation between different variables that are applied to the Argentine and Brazilian cases.