At the start of this academic year, 170 new students arrived at the department. Welcome!

There are some 130 undergraduates starting their BSc programme. Practically all of them are Finnish, since the teaching is mainly given in Finnish. One quarter of them are female.

Some 40 new students entered the Master’s programme, and the majority of them are foreigners. This meets the department’s objective of having larger numbers and more international Master’s students. Of these students, one third are female. In addition, tens of the undergraduates who have completed their Bachelor’s degree at the department are entering the Master’s programme now. These numbers are not entered into the statistics, because they have received their rights to study both for the BSc and the MSc degree at the same time.

(Update 26 Sep 2011: Check out the blog entry "Good reputation attracts international Master's students" with interviews and more information about our international students.)

For comparison: Last year, 126 BSc degrees were completed and 55 MSc degrees. By the end of August this year, the numbers were already 117 and 51, respectively. We increased our international recruitment of Master’s students considerably last year, and that is expected to increase the number of Master's degrees from next year on.

For some reason, most applications to the Master's programmes come from abroad, though they are just as available for Finnish students. The Master’s programme in bioinformatics, especially, would offer the department’s graduates a good opportunity for interdisciplinary studies.

In addition to the aforementioned degree students, many exchange students will arrive at the department all through the year.

Here are some more detailed statistics over the student selection at the department.

Selecting new students for the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes

In the main entry selection, 676 students applied to the BSc and MSC programmes. This was a considerable increase to last year, when there were slightly less than 600 applicants. Of these applicants, 204 were accepted and 136 confirmed their slot. The department’s quota is 130 students, so our estimate was successful.

Two thirds of the applicants came from the metropolitan area, and three fourths of the confirmed students. For some reason, only one fifth of the selected students had matriculated from school this spring, while the same number for the faculty is over half.

International applications and separate selection to Master’s programmes

In the international application to the department’s Master’s programmes given in English, 369 students who had completed their school education abroad applied. Of them, 32 were accepted, and 30 were accepted conditionally because of a missing degree etc. 19 students accepted their slots.

In addition, 16 students who had completed a lower degree in Finland were accepted to the Master’s programmes. Most of them were foreigners. 13 students accepted their slots.

For the separate international Master’s programmes, there were 97 applicants (bioinformatics with joint selection with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics) and 282 applicants (Cross-Border University, ICT). Of these, 8 + 3 were accepted directly and 6 + 3 conditionally. 6 + 3 students accepted their slots. The selection quotas were 15 + 5 students.

The selection quotas will remain the same in 2012 according to the decision recently made by the faculty council.

Editor: Hannu Toivonen
Photo: Esa Pitkänen
Translation: Marina Kurtén