The second joint application round of the spring has ended – Laurea received 20,000 applications

The spring joint application round to higher education institutions ended on Thursday, 30 March at 3 p.m. A total of 4,880 applicants had selected Laurea as their first preference. In this round, Laurea had a total of 1,135 available starting places to Bachelor's or Master's degree-awarding education. Therefore, for each starting place, there were a little over 4 applicants on average who had selected Laurea as their first preference.

The fully-online Bachelor of Social Services degree programme attracted the most applicants

In the spring joint application round, the most popular of Laurea's degree programmes in terms of the number of applicants was the fully-online Bachelor of Social Services programme. It attracted a total of 2,122 applicants, 616 of whom had selected the programme as their first preference. There were more than 15 first-preference applicants for each of the 40 starting places.

Anu Lindström, Development Manager for the Degree Programme in Social Services, recognises shortage of experts in working life as a background factor behind the popularity of the programme:

- We currently have a serious shortage of Bachelors of Social Services. This is why Laurea's flexible Bachelor of Social Services degree programme is so popular. Thanks to online studies, we are able to respond to the labour shortage on a national level, she says.

The second most popular programme was the Degree Programme in Beauty and Cosmetics. There were 40 starting places, and 560 applicants had selected the programme as their first preference. Laurea is the only University of Applied Sciences to offer this education in Finnish.

The most popular Master’s programme in this round was the Strategic Management degree programme, with 202 applicants having entered it as their first preference.

Applicants are interested in fully online education

For several years, Laurea has offered fully online degree programmes. Online studies are a good opportunity for students for whom attending traditional face-to-face classes is unfeasible due to, for example, their work, place of residence, family situation, hobbies, or other restrictions related to their situation in life.

In this spring’s joint application round, Laurea offered six fully online programmes. Three of these were Bachelor’s degree-awarding and three were Master's degree-awarding programmes. The programmes were very popular in terms of the number of applicants.

- It is great to see that our investments in online education also meet the demand in degree-awarding education. This is evident in the high attractiveness of fully-online degree programmes, says Laurea's President and CEO Jouni Koski.

-Flexibility in higher education is increasingly important, as it makes studying possible while working, Mr. Koski continues.