Large number of young people, bad economy add up to more hopefuls

A record 52,544 young people will today receive school acceptance letters, according to figures published by the national Enrolment Secretariat.

The number of acceptances to universities and other post-secondary schools is 12 percent higher than last year, which was itself a record year.

The new record, however, also extends to the number of rejections handed out. Some 14,000 people will be told they have either not been accepted or are on stand-by.

The increased number of applicants meant that the average grade required in order to gain acceptance to study programmes is also at one of the highest levels ever.

Requiring a secondary school grade average of 10.9 on a 12 point scale, Roskilde University’s Humanities programme proved the most difficult to get into this year. It was followed by Medicine at the University of Copenhagen (10.8) and International Business at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS).

Experts say a larger number of young people, combined with the poor economy and rules by the government that create a disincentive for young people to take gap years, has resulted in more applicants.

Eva Theilmann, head of the Enrolment Secretariat, said schools had been able to absorb many of the new applicants without adding extra capacity.

She pointed out that many of the extra applicants had applied for study programmes that had vacancies last year. Programmes such as psychology and medicine, she said, actually had fewer applicants.

Fact File | University programmes with highest admission requirements

A total of 16 study programmes require a grade average above 10.

Humanities, Roskilde University 10.9

Medicine, University of Copenhagen

International Business 10.8

Social Sciences, Roskilde University, 10.7

Political Sciences / Social Sciences, University of Copenhagen 10.7

Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, 10.7

Midwife, University College, 10.6

Molecular Biomedicine, University of Copenhagen, 10.5

Film and Media Sciences, University of Copenhagen, 10.5

Psychology, University of Copenhagen, 10.5

Rhetoric, University of Copenhagen, 10.4

International Business and Politics, CBS, 10.3

Medicine, Aarhus University, 10.1

Veterinary Medicine, University of Copenhagen, 10.1

Literature, University of Copenhagen, 10.0

Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, 10.0