Business Administration tops list of most sought-after fields in university

“Though the social stream is still popular rather than the science stream, Mass Communications and Education have clearly lost their appeal. The former could stem from the fact that many media companies have closed down,” Suchatvee Suwansawat, chair of the Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT), said yesterday. Hence, the agency will apply artificial intelligence (AI) next year to analyse why students prefer one faculty over another, he said. 
Suchatvee said that there were about 200,000 vacant seats left in the TCAS 2019 after the first three rounds, so students who have not been admitted yet still have a chance. 
“This is also the first time that ‘Big Data’ analysis has been applied to the Thai university admission system, showing the public clear details in department and faculty levels. It also revealed the need for Thai universities to adjust themselves to become more competitive as the available seats at universities are significantly larger than the students enrolled,” he said. 
Five rounds were held this year to fill 445,364 seats in 91,340 study programmes. The first round (based on student portfolios) filled 130,140 seats in 67 institutes, the second round (based on a quota system) filled 99,033 seats, the third round (based on direct admission) is for 95,124 seats, the fourth (based on a central admission) for 91,340 seats in 70 institutes and the fifth (based on independent direct admission) for 29,727 seats. The first three rounds together attained 151,806 successful and confirmed candidates this year.
The fourth round – which took applications from May 9-19 and will announce results on May 29 – got 76,408 applications for 91,340 seats. 
The fifth round – which will be open for applications from May 30 to June 10 – will still have plenty of seats for those who did not get admitted in the first four rounds, while seats are also available at many universities that did not join the TCAS process, Suchatvee said.
He said the Top 5 most popular programmes in the third round were: Department of Finance in Kasetsart University (KU)’s Business Administration Faculty (3,151 applicants vying for 30 seats), followed by Department of Marketing at the same faculty (2,723 vying for 30 seats), KU Humanities Faculty’s Department of English Language (2,620 vying for 25 seats), Thammasat’s Department of Economics in the Faculty of Economics (2,599 vying for 240 seats) and the nursing programme at Srinakharinwirot University’s Faculty of Nursing (2,179 applicants for 65 seats).
Peerapong Triyacharoen, CUPT’s assistant secretary-general, said the Top 3 most popular subjects in the fourth round were nursing at Prince of Songkhla University’s Faculty of Nursing (1,188 fighting for 96 seats), nursing at Burapha University’s Faculty of Nursing (1,128 applicants for 35 seats) and medical technology at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Allied Health Sciences (1,178 applicants for 110 seats).