Social work is straggling far behind nursing in popularity among university applicants, figures published by UCAS show today.
Applications for nursing this year were more than double than for social work, and nursing was ranked in the top five subjects.
There was also a big leap in applicants for nursing from 2008-9, while the number of people applying for social work courses rose only marginally.
Applications for social work foundation degree courses rose by 6%, but only by 0.7% for the social work degree and 0.5% for other social work courses.
By comparison, applications for the nursing degree shot up by 15.8% and the nursing foundation degree by 18.9%. Other nursing courses also saw a 15.1% rise.
Overall, social work courses attracted 44,404 applicants while 98,983 applied to study nursing, the figures as of 15 January revealed.
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