Last-minute spurt in first-year registrations

The number of new Bachelor’s students who had registered by mid-March was still 15 per cent down on last year. Now a small drop in numbers looks likely.
Photo: Guy Ackermans

WUR is no longer heading for a big drop in the number of first-year Bachelor’s students next academic year. The number of registrations has picked up in the past few weeks by so much that WUR now stands to welcome 1880 first-year Bachelor’s students, a growth of eight per cent compared with last year.

But the growth is likely to be a bit smaller than that in practice. For one thing, last year Dutch secondary school students were given until 1 June to register because of the coronavirus outbreak, whereas this year registration closed on 1 May as usual. If we compare the current figures with those of 1 June last year, the number of Dutch secondary school students has gone down. Secondly, the number of international students who have registered has gone up, but not all international students who register come in the end. Knowing that, it seems likely that WUR will end up with a small drop in the number of first-year students.

Growth areas

The degree programmes in Communication, Business and Consumer Sciences and Tourism are still facing falling numbers, while the programmes in Environmental Sciences, Landscape Architecture and Molecular Life Sciences are the biggest growth areas. Registrations at other universities are up by an average of five per cent, reports the Association of Universities, VSNU.

USA

It is not yet certain how many Master’s students WUR will be welcoming next year, because European students in particular tend to register late. An interesting detail is that the number of students from the United States has made a big jump from 20 to nearly 100.

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