Sandra Copeland said yesterday the latest week-long programme, which starts next week, had attracted 550 applications for 400 places.
Last year, 414 senior school pupils from throughout the country attended, and about 450 had applied for places.
Mrs Copeland said the expanded programme was attracting more positive comments from former participants, which had sparked more applications.
This is the 29th year of the university's successful week-long annual programme, which starts on January 14.
The programme was initially titled ``Hands-on Science'' and attracted about 230 secondary school pupils to the university's Dunedin campus.
But in 2016 the programme was renamed and expanded to include humanities and business projects, and the number of participating pupils has since risen to about 400.
Pupils were responding positively to the wider mix of options, and including humanities and business subjects was helping to break down barriers between arts and sciences.
``We live in one world, and we need to be citizens of that world'', and educated both in science and in humanities, she said.
She believed it was also ``hugely important'' for participating pupils to ``recognise the value of humanities''.
The university is using two colleges of residence, Arana and Studholme, to cater for the bigger cohort of pupils, and a bigger team of 40 volunteer helpers is providing support.
The programme enabled pupils to learn more about university-level science, humanities and business subjects.
Pupils studied one project in mornings throughout the week, with shorter afternoon ``snack'' sessions on other topics and a social programme.
