Monday saw thousands of student hopefuls in Denmark find out if they’ve been accepted into university.
The news comes amid a record year for further education in the Scandinavian country, in which some 80,000 students applied and a whopping 60,437 were accepted. The latter figure marks a year-on-year increase of six percent.
Among the most difficult programs for students to get into was the University of Copenhagen’s molecular biomedicine course, which saw only 51 of more than 350 applicants achieve grades high enough to gain acceptance.
Despite the high number of accepted students across all programs this year, around 18,000 hopefuls will be forced to wait until next year due to insufficient grades or qualifications for their programme of choice.
Meanwhile, some Danish ministers, such as MP Rosa Lund of the far-left Enhedslisten Party, say that the government should extend the number of places available for new students. However, others argue that keeping standards high for admission are beneficial to the country’s further education system.
MP Ramsus Prehn of the Socialdemokraterne Party told Politiken newspaper, “It would be hard to accept more students when we are already stretched as it is. Educational institutions also have to be able set a minimum standard for acceptance.”