By Dara Bradley

The Connacht Sentinel

The numbers of students applying for the Arts degree course offered at NUI Galway has increased by 15% in just two years, partly on the back of a wave of publicity surrounding the city during the Volvo Ocean Race.

Almost 6,400 people chose Arts in NUIG as their top three preferences under the CAO system this year and nearly 1,300 had the course as their first choice.

Dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, Dr Edward Herring told the Sentinel that a mixture of NUIG’s reputation, the variety of subjects on offer in the Bachelor of Arts programme and even the successful Volvo Ocean Race Stopover, have helped to increase the numbers of applications for the Arts degree course.

“We’ve seen an increase in applications in the region of 15% over two years. The popularity is down to a number of factors. Some of it is to do with the university’s reputation – it has won the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2009 and the university was ranked in the top 300 in the world,” he said.

“In the general arts programme we offer a greater choice of subjects than other universities; we do four subjects in first year while others do three. We also have a broad range of subjects such as legal science, economics, IT and mathematics. So there is a broad choice for students."

Dr Herring cited last summer’s Volvo Ocean Race as having a positive impact on recruiting new students.

“The Volvo Ocean Race came about at a time when students were filling out their change of mind forms for the CAO and the positive publicity surrounding the event certainly was a factor.

"We had a number of volunteers from NUIG working for the event and the exposure and positive association ... I do think that was a factor,” he said.

Read more in this week's Connacht Sentinel