Applicants: New degree programmes drive 48 % increase for faculty

A total of 795 applicants have selected a science bachelor’s programme at SDU as their first choice. Last year, the figure was 537. This corresponds to an increase of 48 %.

Overall, the result is highly encouraging. Although the 12 degree programmes in Odense have experienced a slight decline collectively, with variation between individual programmes, there are nevertheless many reasons for the Faculty of Science to be satisfied.

To begin with, the growth in first-choice applications is clearly driven by the two new programmes in Vejle: Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. The English-language bachelor’s programmes have attracted 130 and 135 first-choice applicants respectively. The original target in Vejle was to enrol 30 students on each programme.

Although there is always greater uncertainty associated with international applicants, who typically do not accept offers to the same extent as Danish applicants, the figures are sufficiently high that, with a degree of optimism, it seems reasonable to expect that the enrolment target for the first year in Vejle will be achieved.

By contrast, the science degree programmes in Odense have experienced a slight decline following last year’s exceptionally high level of applications, which, as noted, amounted to 537 first-choice applications. This represents a modest decrease of just seven first-choice applicants.

Review of individual programmes

The three mathematics bachelor’s programmes—Applied Mathematics, Mathematics and Mathematics-Economics—have collectively gained 11 first-choice applications.

The Pharmacy programme has been selected as a first choice by 123 applicants. This is down on last year’s record-high figure of 136 first-choice applications. Nevertheless, it remains the second-highest number of first-choice applications the programme has recorded by the 5 July application deadline. 

Medicinal Chemistry has experienced a modest increase. The same applies to Chemistry and Physics, both of which have recorded healthy growth, meaning that FKF as a whole has gained 1 additional first-choice application.

Biology has also seen a strong increase in first-choice applications. The same is true for Biomedicine, while Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has declined, receiving 30 first-choice applications this year compared with 35 last year. However, this still exceeds the programme’s intake capacity, which has been reduced to 26 places after the programme was designated as one of SDU’s new signature programmes.

Despite this slight decline, BMB has achieved overall growth as a department, as has the Department of Biology.

Unfortunately, Artificial Intelligence in Odense has also experienced a slight decline, while first-choice applications to Computer Science have fallen from 68 last year to just 37 this year. 

This represents a significant drop for the Danish-language bachelor’s programme, which is not fully offset by the number of Danish first-choice applications to the two new English-language sister programmes in Vejle, where 26 of the total 265 first-choice applications come from Danish applicants. 

Nevertheless, IMADA has also grown overall—and quite substantially—thanks to the international applicants attracted by the Vejle programmes.

As a result, all four departments within the Faculty of Science have received more first-choice applications than they did last year.

Trends in this year’s admissions cycle

Although the decline in applications to Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence in Odense is disappointing, this is not a trend confined to the Faculty of Science in Odense or to SDU’s IT programmes.

The Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science reports that IT degree programmes nationwide have experienced a 9 % decline in first-choice applications. Including the new programmes in Vejle, SDU has nevertheless achieved an overall increase of 41 % in applications to IT degree programmes.

More broadly, STEM programmes have experienced a 3 % decline nationwide.

However, if one looks exclusively at science degree programmes at Danish universities in the Ministry’s figures, the picture is more positive. The field has seen growth of almost 2 %, receiving 5,290 first-choice applications nationally, which is 80 more than last year, when 5,210 applicants selected a science degree programme as their first choice.

But if the Faculty of Science at SDU is excluded from the figures, the situation looks rather different. In that case, the remaining higher education institutions have experienced a 3.5 % decline in first-choice applications to science degree programmes.