Many more applicants to international Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes
This year, more people have applied to Uppsala University’s international Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes than ever before. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt.
More people than ever before have applied for Uppsala University’s international Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes. The same trend is seen among both fee-paying and non-fee-paying students.
A total of 12,073 fee-paying students have applied for and paid the application fee for Uppsala University’s international Master’s programmes. This is an increase of just under 32% from the previous year.
Among the non-fee-paying students, 4,810 have applied for international Master’s programmes, an increase of 12% from the previous year.
International Bachelor’s programmes have also continued their rise in popularity, with a total of 1,315 applicants (811 fee-paying) compared to the previous year’s 1,241 (646 fee-paying) applicants.
The bar chart shows the number of applicants after the last payment date since 2019. Blue bars are fee-paying and orange bars are non fee-payers.
Needs to be analysed
“There is a surprisingly big increase in third-country students applying for our Master’s programmes and it’s too early to draw any conclusions about why. That needs to be carefully analysed,” according to Joachim Ekström, head of the Student Recruitment unit.
The next important date is 27 March, when the results of applications for the Master’s programmes will be published. For the Bachelor’s programmes, the results will be available on 3 April.
Also a challenge
The large number of applicants also presents a challenge. The work of recruiting students, providing information and support during the application process, and processing the applications is an extensive process that involves cooperation across many divisions and departments in the University. “A major challenge now lies in the cooperation required between the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) and Sweden’s higher education institutions, which are jointly responsible for assessing compliance with the general entry requirements,” says Fredrik Pettersson, Admissions Coordinator at the Student Affairs and Academic Registry Division.
“This means more requests for additional documentation, more documents that need to be scanned and indexed, and a larger number of documents that need to be interpreted and processed by UHR. But the biggest strain is on core activities, and especially on the programme coordinators, as assessing specific entry requirements and qualifications is a significant part of this work,” says Fredrik Pettersson.
Sara Högbom