SERSD and Mikrobiologi most popular among the Master's programmes

January 17 was the last day to apply for BIG's nine Master's programmes. The result is 1383 applications in total, of which 491 have the programme as their first choice. Compared to last year, the number of first-choice applications has reduced by about 10%. On the other hand, there was an approximately equal increase last year. This year's figures can therefore be seen as a return to how it was before. Jessica Slove Davidson, director of studies at BIG, believes that the temporary (?) increase last year may have been an effect of the pandemic: that Sweden did not not go into lockdown in the same way as many other countries may have attracted more students to apply to our programmes.
As usual, the SERSD programme (Social-ecological resilience for sustainable development) received most applications at the department. The second most applications are for the master's program in microbiology. Together, the two programmes have almost half of all first-choice applications, but still do not dominate as much as they have previous years when they have accounted for more than half of the applications. The NABiS program, the Nordic master's program in biodiversity and systematics, has the least number of applications, with only 5 first-choice applicants this year. However, this program is a collaboration between several Nordic universities and the total number of applicants is hopefully significantly larger. The other six Master's programmes have between 28 and 55 first-choice applicants, where above all the broad biology programme has received more applicants.
Normally, the final number of registered students is only 10 - 20% of the number of first-choice applicants.

On route from the subway to the Biology building on a frosty winter day