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Record-breaking enrollment: Growing interest in UCM postgraduate programs

abril 11, 2025

Doctorates and master’s programs at the Universidad Católica del Maule filled their application process in record time highlighting the outstanding momentum of its postgraduate offerings.

The 42 postgraduate programs of the Universidad Católica del Maule (UCM) began the new academic year on the right foot, breaking records in their application processes. For the first time in almost three decades, since the campus inaugurated its postgraduate programs with the Master’s in Education, the number of candidates exceeded the number of vacancies.

“The calls for applications filled up quickly and we have more students. We surpassed the usual average of effective enrollment, reaching more than 400 future postgraduates in total,” said the institution’s Postgraduate Director, Dr. Marcelo Castillo.

The consolidation of the academic faculties and the positioning of their graduates reflect the excellent moment that both the doctoral and master’s programs of the Talca-based university are going through. In the case of programs leading to the highest academic degree, UCM recorded a 130% increase in the number of students benefiting from scholarships from the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID).

“For us this is a tremendous achievement, because we have validated the accreditation process that almost all of our doctoral programs have successfully completed, allowing aspiring doctoral candidates to apply for state funding. We have accredited nine out of eleven doctorates; the goal is for the CNA to endorse the remaining two,” said the director.

Another determining factor for the success of the call for applications was the unification of processes “by means of general criteria applied to the programs, as a result of a renewed management that facilitated a more intelligent and connected experience for those who came to our virtual platform,” said Castillo.

Paradigmatic case

In an environment of continuous improvement, the Master’s Degree in Child and Adolescent Mental Health showed its most striking properties and managed to establish itself as the program with the best enrollment at UCM. “I believe that the master’s degree has several attributes that have led students to prefer us. It is a well-positioned master’s program, with years of maturity that have allowed it to consolidate its strengths,” said the program’s director, Dr. Nancy Espinosa.

Both in our country and in international research,” he said, ”there is a clear need to train professionals in the area of child and adolescent mental health, specialized in the development of preventive and promotional interventions, with a more economical and effective scope. This is how our program has understood it since its beginnings, and it is the seal that we have maintained”.

In addition to master’s and doctoral degrees, UCM’s offer includes 14 medical and health specialties, all with the capacity to train advanced human capital that generates positive impacts on society.

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