Photo: Guy Ackermans Wageningen is attracting just as many first-year Bachelor’s students as last year. Many of them are looking for rooms.
Before the summer holidays started, it looked as though the university was heading for a few per cent fewer Bachelor’s students than last academic year. But preliminary first-year registrations have since gone up by a few per cent. Spokesperson Annet Blanken of WUR expects the number of new Dutch students in the coming academic year to stay about the same as last year.
Room
More of those Dutch students seem to be looking for a room, though. Student housing provider Idealis reports that more than 2400 students have registered with room.nl for a room in Wageningen and Ede – slightly more than last year. Idealis spokesperson Hellen Albers suspects that more students are going to start a degree than last year since the coronavirus measures have led to more High School students passing their exams and fewer taking a gap year.
Master’s
The number of new Wageningen Master’s students cannot be predicted yet. It is possible that the influx of Master’s students from other Dutch universities [CM1] may stay the same or increase a little, but it is still very hard to say how many international Master’s students will come. It seems as though more students from other EU countries are registering, but it is thought that recruitment from outside Europe will go down. At this point, only 300 non-EU students have been able to obtain visas and flights to come to Wageningen. These students from outside Europe will have to go into quarantine for two weeks on arrival. Normally, at least twice as many first-years come to Wageningen from outside the EU.
Visa
More international students may arrive during the course of the academic year. Many African students cannot apply for a visa for the Netherlands at present because most Dutch embassies in Africa are closed due to Covid-19. Some international students may start a degree online and come to Wageningen later in the year if the situation improves.
