Number of students skyrockets in joint application of spring 2020

A record number of students have applied for admission in higher educational institutes in the joint application process of spring 2020, said the Finnish National Agency of Education in a press release issued on Tuesday.

The number is about 8,000 higher than the number of applicants in the corresponding joint application process in spring 2019.

In the joint application, one can apply to higher study programmes taught in English as well as the studies offered by the University of the Arts.

More than 20,000 students applied for admission in the study programmes taught in English and those offered by the University of the Arts this year.

The deadline for the joint application process of spring 2020 for higher education ended on January 22. There were about 4,700 study places available under about 260 study programmes, which were much more compared to that in the corresponding session last year when there were about 2,300 study places under about 170 study programmes.

Two-thirds of the study places available were offered by universities of applied sciences and the rest by the universities.

The number of applicants to the University of the Arts was about 3,700 and that of the applicants to study programmes offered in English was about 17,000. Approximately 12,000 applicants were of non-Finnish nationality.

The most popular fields were business, administration and law, arts and culture, and information and communication technologies.

The toughest competition for study places in higher education was in the fields of arts and culture (15.4 applicants per study place), social studies (8 applicants for every study place), and health and welfare (5.8 applicants/study place).

The fields with the lowest number of applicants per available study place were humanities (2.8) and education (3).

During the next few months, higher education institutions will inspect the applications and organise entrance examinations. The first results of the first joint application will be published starting from the end of February. All results will be published latest on the 5th of June.