The number of applicants to DTU is up on last year—with ‘General Engineering’ topping the list. The new ‘Data Science and Artificial Intelligence' is also popular among the applicants.
A total of 2,966 young people have applied for admission to DTU’s BSc Eng and BEng programmes as their first priority compared with 2,776 in 2017, an increase of 7 per cent on last year.
The total number of applications for DTU has increased by 7 per cent from 7,325 last year to 7,837 this year. This can be seen from the list of applicants for higher education in Denmark. A total of 89,700 young people have submitted their application for a higher education, a bit below last year’s figure of 90,563.
According to Martin Vigild, Senior Vice President and Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Student Affairs, the figures suggest that the young people are curious, brave, and responsible, and the figures are also proof that the students are attracted to study programmes within the digital, the traditional, and the society-related fields.
“A significant and impressive increase of 7 per cent can be seen among first-priority applicants to DTU this year, while the overall picture at national level is a stagnant number of applications for higher education,” says Martin Vigild.
“The many applications tell me that the young people are both courageous and curious of the unknown within, for example, digitalization and smart cities. They have realized that we’re facing some global challenges that we must overcome, so that civilization as we know it today can continue to exist in a sustainable manner.”
New study programmes
DTU has created new study programmes this year, and the BSc Eng in ‘Data Science and Artificial Intelligence’ has witnessed a sensational debut with a huge number of applications—164 first-priority applicants. With 52 first-priority applicants, the BSc Eng programme in ‘Design of Sustainable Energy Systems’ is also a popular choice that has come off to an excellent start.
"The many applications tell me that the young people are both courageous and curious of the unknown within, for example, digitalization and smart cities."
Martin Vigild, Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Student Affairs
The study programme attracting the most applications is the new English-language BSc in ‘General Engineering’, which is now admitting students for the third time.
The BEng programmes ‘Software Technology’, 'Civil Engineering', and 'Architectural Engineering' are very popular as are the BSc Eng study programmes 'Software Technology', 'Civil Engineering', and 'Architectural Engineering'. Particularly the civil and architectural engineering programmes are seeing an increase in applications.
Among the BEng programmes, the health and food areas witness significant increases, while the joint BEng programme in ‘IT and Economics’ offered in collaboration with Copenhagen Business School (CBS) tops the list with an increase of 116 per cent among the established programmes.
Among the engineering programmes, the BSc Eng in ‘Strategic Analysis and Systems Design’ is seeing a positive trend as is ‘Quantitative Biology and Disease Modelling’.
“It’s particularly interesting that the number of applicants for the BEng and BSc Eng programmes in IT is up by 34 per cent on average. A positive development, which shows how the interests of young people meet the needs of the business sector,” says Martin Vigild.
Female students
The engineering programme has historically been dominated by male applicants, but that picture is changing and is far from the case on most programmes.
More than half of DTU’s study programmes have a gender distribution with between 30 and 60 per cent female students, and four BSc Eng programmes have a share of more than 60 per cent female students. The same applies to two of DTU’s BEng programmes.
“Basically, we have received approx. 3,000 applications with DTU as first priority, but we have only about 2,000 student places. It’s therefore our job to find room for as many as possible and try to increase the number of place. We will, unfortunately, have to turn down applicants, but we will try to avoid unreasonable minimum grade point averages for admission, so that you can start on an engineering programme if that is what you want.”
On 28 July, the applicants will learn whether they have been admitted to their programme.
Development in number of applicants 2010-2018
| Year |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2013*) |
2014**) |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
| Total applications |
3,422 |
4,193 |
4,444 |
6,045 |
|
5,931 |
6,465 |
7,583 |
7,325 |
7,837 |
| With DTU as 1st priority |
1,402 |
1,591 |
1,680 |
2,267 |
2,090 |
2,294 |
2,538 |
2,816 |
2,776 |
2,966 |
*) The figures for 2013 are exclusive of the English-language study programmes and Sustainable Energy.
**) The 2014 figure cannot be directly compared with those from previous years on account of changes to the range of BEng study programmes offered.