Application & admission: FAQ

The minimum requirement for all master’s programmes at Utrecht University is an undergraduate degree in the same or a related field. The selection committee will determine whether your bachelor’s degree is sufficient for admission. Other documents, including your CV and motivation letter, will also be considered in the decision-making process. Utrecht University cannot confirm in advance whether your degree will qualify you for admission. We therefore advise you to submit your application so that your position is clarified. 

The minimum requirement for all master’s programmes at Utrecht University is an undergraduate degree in the same or a related field. Some programmes may have GPA entry requirements or selection criteria. These will be listed under entry requirements for each programme. 

Conditional admission means you will be admitted after fulfilling all the requirements stated in your conditional letter of acceptance. These requirements can range from sending in certified hard copies of your degree and final transcript to completing extra courses.

To start your application, log in to Studielink. If you encounter any difficulties while starting your application, we advise you to check whether your question is answered on the Studielink FAQ page. You can find several step-by-step guides on this page. If you cannot find an answer to your question, you can always contact Student Services. 
 
Please always check the complete application procedure on the page of the specific study programme you are interested in to make sure you have not missed any steps. 

After you have completed the first part of the application in Studielink, you will receive an e-mail with login details for OSIRIS Online Application within 24 hours. If this is not the case, please check your spam folder or contact International Student Admissions at admissionsoffice@uu.nl.

Go to OSIRIS Online Application and click on ‘change username/password forgotten?’ If this doesn’t work, please contact International Student Admissions at admissionsoffice@uu.nl.

Please upload a PDF explaining why you do not have this document. As all requested documents are an essential part of your application file, we can only process complete application files. If you are unable to submit your application in OSIRIS Online Application because you are missing a document, please contact Student Services. 

All students who completed their previous studies outside the Netherlands have to pay the application fee. Please check the application fee page for more information and possible exemptions. 

The application fee payment process is integrated into OSIRIS Online Application. You can pay the fee by VISA or MasterCard (debit or credit card). We also offer the option of paying with iDEAL, Bancontact or Sofort. It is not possible to submit your application without payment or obtaining an exemption from payment of the application fee. Please check the application fee page for more information. 

Problems with references can occur for different reasons.

If your referee has not received an invitation, they should first check their spam folder. The invitation might have been filtered there by their email provider. If this is not the case, you have the option to re-send the invitation to your referees. You can do so in OSIRIS Online Application. Up to three references can be invited.

If your referees have an institutional email address (e.g. with a university or company domain), the security settings of the receiving email provider may block the invitations. This can cause the invitation to bounce. If your referee has not received an invite, or if your request is denied automatically, please send your referee a new invitation using a different, non-institutional email address.  

If the problem maintains, please contact us at admissionsoffice@uu.nl. 

A certified copy is a photocopy of your original degree certificate or transcript that carries an official stamp and signature from the university that issued the original document. See this video for more information: 

The scans of your degree certificate or transcript do not have to be certified. If the scans of your degree certificate and transcript are not in Dutch, English, French, German or Spanish, they must be accompanied by an official translation, drawn up by a sworn translator and bearing the original stamp and professional details of the translator.  

Your proof of anticipated degree statement or school statement must carry a stamp from your university or school.

Certain programmes require official course descriptions provided by the educational institution that you are currently attending or have attended. A course description explains the topics or subject handled in the course, learning outcomes, number of credits, teaching method etc. 

It is important that we have the right information to properly assess whether you qualify for admission. You must therefore apply through the regular admission procedure and submit the required documents, including information about relevant courses. If you have not taken the relevant courses, it would be wise to contact the programme to confirm your eligibility. You can find the contact details on the website of the programme under ‘contact’. 

In this case you can upload the same document under degree and transcript.

We advise students to apply as soon as possible. You can submit an application even if you have not yet obtained your degree. However, in this case we will need written proof that you are indeed in the final stages of your programme and that it is likely that you will graduate soon. You can ask your current university/institution to provide a statement. This statement must contain the following information: 

• Your name.  
• Your date of birth.  
• The official and full name of the degree you will be obtaining.  
• The official duration of the study programme.  
• If applicable: the remaining courses (course name and if possible the number of ECTS).  
• The name and position of the person signing the statement.  
• Expected graduation date.  

The statement must be signed and stamped by an official at your university.  

Download the UU statement of Proof of Anticipated Degree (pdf, 48 kB). 

Please note that it is not necessary to have passed an English test at the time of your application. The results can be submitted later. Please inform us of the test you will take and the date you will take the test in OSIRIS Online Application. 

We are currently dealing with a large number of incoming documents. We will inform you as soon as we have processed your documents. 

Regarding the status of the arrival of your post: if you have used a track and trace service to send your documents and you have been notified that they have reached their destination, they are almost certainly in our possession. Please do not worry. We are unfortunately unable to inform each student that their post has arrived. It is not necessary to contact us to ask whether we have received your documents or send us requested/missing application documents by e-mail, as this will only delay the process. 

We will process the documents of students who require a visa first, as the deadline is 15 June. For students who do not require a visa, please note that we will process your documents from June onwards. Thank you for your patience.

The cost of a visa/residence permit application is €257. Please note that you will have to transfer this to Utrecht University together with the tuition fee for the first academic year. You will receive the invoice by e-mail in May or November, depending on the start date of your programme. 

One of the conditions for your visa application set by the IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service) is that students must have sufficient funds to live and study in the Netherlands. In more specific terms, students must have sufficient funds to pay for their study and living expenses without needing to work. This is generally about €11,000 plus the tuition fee for the whole academic year. More details will be provided by e-mail when it is time to start the application. 

Visa/residence permit applications for study at Utrecht University are submitted by Utrecht University. Your point of contact will always be Utrecht University and not the IND. The visa department will notify you by e-mail when it is time to start the application.

Once you have successfully submitted an enrolment request in Studielink for one of our programmes, you will receive an e-mail from Utrecht University containing your student number. Please state your student number when contacting Utrecht University. 

A Solis-ID is a username that, together with a password, gives you access to Utrecht University services. You will be given access to this student account once you have been fully enrolled. Your Solis-ID account number will usually be the same as your student number. New students will receive their Solis-ID and password in two separate e-mails to their private e-mail address. 

More information on the Solis-ID

As a student registered at Utrecht University, you will receive a digital student card stating the degree programme in which you are enrolled and the period of enrolment. You will find your student card in the MyUU app once you are fully enrolled. You can log in to the app with your Solis-ID. If you prefer a paper version or cannot use the app, you can print your Declaration of Enrolment in OSIRIS.  

More information on the student card.