In Turkey, every year, over 1.5 million young people take the infamous Student Selection Exam hoping to have the right to a university education. 3 SAAT (3 HOURS) focuses on the personal dimension of this "life-and-death matter" by following the lives of 6 young university candidates for a year. We witness the thoughts, emotions and hopes of these young people before, during, and after the exam. In the film, their trials and tribulations are presented in an intimate way, within the wider contexts of this distinctive phenomenon in Turkey, while the filmmakers are the observers, witnesses, intruders, and guests in the lives of these young women and men.