3,200 new students at CBS

Photo: Bjarke MacCarthy

The just over 3,200 new students have been admitted into CBS’ 18 bachelor programmes, where BSc in Economics and Business Administration is still CBS’ most popular programme with more than 2,600 qualified applicants and an intake of 760 students. Regardless of which programme the new students have been admitted into, they can look forward to an education with a strong business focus and good employment prospects in Danish as well as international companies.

COVID-19’s impact on the 2020 intake
There has been a great focus on how COVID-19 would influence the 2020 intake in the media and most likely among the applicants as well.  

“COVID-19 has influenced this year’s intake but not by as much as we might have expected. We have seen a moderate increase of 2.9% in the number of 1st priority applications, which goes well with the fact that we have increased the number of study places with just over 3% in an attempt to cushion an expected increase in the number of applicants due to COVID-19. Another tendency is that we have admitted slightly fewer international students this year because the applicants’ mobility has been hampered by COVID-19”, says Anne Mette Hou, Head of Student Affairs.

A different kind of semester ahead
There is no doubt that COVID-19 will impact the new students’ study start and their first semester. Fortunately, CBS will be able to reopen campus in August and receive the new students – in consideration of the authorities’ guidelines.
The reopening of campus also means that a large part of teaching in the autumn semester will take place in CBS’ buildings and rooms, but for the moment, it will not take place in the same way as before. CBS’ campus is the university campus in Denmark with the highest density of students per square meter. This means that in order to maintain a high academic quality and comply with the current guidelines and distance rules, 50% of the teaching activities will take place online. This was already announced by CBS in May so teachers and study boards would be able to adapt the autumn semester’s teaching to the circumstances. In the planning of the upcoming semester, the online teaching activities have been organised and optimised on the basis of our experiences with online teaching this spring, and we expect that the teaching activities will be of the same high quality as before COVID-19.

Decline in the entry GPAs
Generally, we have seen a small decline this year in the entry grade point averages at CBS. This is primarily due to abolition of the quick-bonus where applicants could multiply their GPA with 1.08 if they applied for enrolment in a higher education no later than two years after the qualifying exam.
This year, CBS has received a total of 15,315 applications, of which 5,260 are 1st priority applications.  Just under one third of the 3,215 new students have been enrolled through quota 2, where the applicants are admitted on the basis of an overall assessment and not only their GPAs.
All places are filled, and unfortunately, there are no vacant places or waiting lists.


Applicants can find more information here:
I did not get in – what next?
Welcome to CBS
Questions about this year’s intake 
This year’s entry GPAs and number of places 
News article about this year's number of applicants 

For more information, journalists can contact:
Head of Student Affairs Anne Mette Hou, amh.stu@cbs.dk, + 45 41 85 25 99
Special Advisor Anders Jonas Pedersen, ajp.ls@cbs.dk, +45 29 47 72 46