Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service
| Samordna opptak | |
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| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1991 |
| Jurisdiction | Government of Norway |
| Headquarters | Oslo |
| Employees | 26 centrally + 10 hired IT-staff |
| Annual budget | Ca 21.000.000 NOK |
| Agency executive |
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| Website | www.samordnaopptak.no |
The Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Norwegian: Samordna opptak) is a Norwegian government agency responsible for application and admission to all public universities and university colleges in Norway for entry level degrees, either Bachelor degrees for liberal studies and some professional studies, as well as certain Master level programs in professional studies. The agency is subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and is managed by the University of Oslo.
Traditionally Norwegian universities and colleges had a system of local admission control. This system was tedious since each person had to apply to each institution and it was difficult to manage declines from students who were accepted to other institutions. Particularly in 1990 there was a massive increase in the application to higher educations and this resulted in an immense workload on the local administrators.
To solve this problem, the Government initiated a program to effectivise the application and admission system. Until 1994 the system merely collected information from the institutions, but from 1995 for the colleges and 1997 for the universities the admission rankings were centralized through the system so each applicant only got one admission place. From 1999 application via the Internet was possible, and from 2008 only online application is possible. After 2000 the grades from the upper secondary schools are automatically transferred to the system.
The system opens on February 1 each year, with application deadline April 15. Some special groups have application deadline March 1. On the application up to ten prioritized programs can be specified. The order of their programs can be altered up to July 1, but no new program can be added after April 15. On July 20 the main admission is run and made known to the applicants, and no one is given more than one admission; on the highest ranked program that the candidate is qualified for and has enough points for after a specialized stable marriage algorithm. Programs with more applicants get waiting lists. Later in the summer and during the fall more people are admitted from the lists if enough people from the main admission decline the places. Studies with insufficient applicants to fill up become part of the Remains Market (Restetorget), which offers first-to-grab principle after the main application. Only entry-level programs are run through the system. Admission from bachelor to master level programs is still handled locally.
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