According to the Finnish National Agency for Education (OPH), a record number of 23,400 applicants participated in this spring’s first joint application to higher education, which ended on Wednesday 20 January. The number of applicants is approximately 3,000 more than last spring.
The spring 2021 joint application to higher education opened approximately 5,600 study places available within approximately 270 study programmes. Two thirds of those study places available are offered by universities of applied sciences and the remaining third by universities.
In total, there were approximately 23,400 applicants, of whom 14,500 were non-Finnish citizens. Most of these, 12,500 applicants, are students from outside the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA).
Most popular fields
The most popular fields were business, administration and law, information and communication technologies and arts and culture.
The toughest competition for study places in higher education was in the fields of arts and culture (13,7 applicants per study place), social studies (8 applicants per study place) as well as health and welfare (6,6 applicants per study place).
The fields with the lowest number of applicants per available study place were humanities (3,4) and natural sciences (3,3).
Admission results
During the next few months, higher education institutions inspect applications and organize entrance exams.
The first results of the first joint application will be published starting from the end of January and the beginning of February. All results will be published on 4 June at the latest.
Accepted applicants will be automatically informed via e-mail.
The second joint application, for degree programmes offered in Finnish and Swedish, will be arranged 17 to 31 March 2021, according to OPH.
