6,850 get admission to English-taught, art studies programmes

About 6850 students were offered admission to higher education institutions’ English-taught study programmes and art study programmes, said the Finnish National Agency for Education in a press release on Wednesday.

More than 32,600 applicants applied in the first joint application this spring, with 21% receiving an offer of admission.

The selection in the joint application consisted of programmes offered in English and programmes offered by the University of the Arts Helsinki.

Compared to last year, about 800 more applicants were accepted. The number of applicants grew by over 10,000 when compared to last spring. The rate of acceptance was slightly lower six percent (21% in 2022, 27% in 2021) than the previous year.

The most challenging fields of study to be admitted to were arts and culture, with only 10% of applicants being accepted, as well as health and social studies, also with an acceptance rate of 10%. With 26% of applicants accepted, the easiest field to gain admission to was humanities.

About 64% of all the applicants were accepted to bachelor's degree programmes while 36% were accepted to master’s degree programmes.

About 61 % of the applicants were offered admission to universities of applied sciences (Polytechnic) , while 39% were accepted to universities.

About 33% of the accepted applicants are Finnish citizens. The next two most prominent within the accepted applicants were citizens of Bangladesh and Nigeria.

About 57% of the total number of accepted applicants were from outside the EU/EEA area.

“The number of applicants from outside the EU/EEA area was significantly larger compared to last year. However, the number of available places did not grow in proportion, which lead to fewer admitted applicants compared to previous years,” said Riku Hanhinen, planning specialist in the Finnish National Agency for Education.

The applicants were informed of the results of the joint application during the first week of June. The offer of admission must be accepted by 15 July, before 3 PM EEST.

Applicants can be admitted from a waiting list until 2 August.

The higher education institutions can organize supplementary application rounds in order to fill study places left vacant in the joint application.

The higher education institutions independently decide if they will organize supplementary application rounds, and the programmes and instructions on how and when to apply will be published on Studyinfo and the institutions’ own websites once the decisions have been made. These programmes can be applied to via Studyinfo.

The joint application to higher education has been divided into two separate joint applications since 2020.

In the first joint application, one can apply to degree programmes offered in English and programmes offered by the University of the Arts. In the second joint application in spring, one can apply to degree programmes offered in Finnish and Swedish.