Faculty of Social Sciences

Direct Admission

Please note, that the admission criteria for admissions in the year 2005 will be decided by the Faculty Council in December 2004, and changes are possible. Please take a look at this page in January 2005 in order to get the updated information.

Deadline 27^th of February 2004!

The Council of the Faculty of Social Sciences has established the terms for applicants who have already finished or are about to finish their lower academic degree at a foreign university on the 10^th December 2003. According to the decision taken, the following procedure was used in this form of admission in the year 2004:

1. The amount of students that will be accepted

At the maximum 50 students can be accepted at the Faculty of Social Sciences with this procedure, and this quota on solely for those students who have received their Bachelor´s diploma (see below) from a foreign university, regardless, whether they are Finnish-, EU-nationals or coming outside the European Union. In which country the applicant has finished his/her secondary education is not the key factor in this procedure.

Fields of study and their quotas

The maximum intake of holders of a B.Soc.Sc. degree (or similar) by the departments in the year 2004:

Social Policy
- Social Policy Proper 2
- N.B. Social Work does not accept new international students at this form of admission
Social Psychology 4
Sociology
- Social and Cultural Anthropology 2
- General Sociology (includes Sociology proper and Demography as specialisation lines) 2
Economics 5
Statistics 2
Philosophy 4
Political Science (includes Political Science Proper, International Relations and Administrative Studies as specialisation lines) 15
History of Societies

Economic and Social History 2
Political History 2

Communication 4
Development Studies 6

In addition, the Selection Committee of International Students can exceed the total amount of accepted students on the grounds of propositions of the departments.

2. The Application Procedure

The following persons are qualified to apply:

Those persons who have or who have had the right to take a university degree in a foreign university and who meet the following requirements:

The applicant must have a Bachelor´s Degree from a recognised and internationally acknowledged university, that offers full-time studies (a correspondence degree is not accepted) leading to a degree or at least three years of full-time studies in a university-level institution. If the applicant has not yet received the final diploma, the studies used in this application process should be at such stage, that they permit the applicant to receive his/her BA-diploma before the beginning of the autumn term, i.e. 1^stof August 2004. A certified copy of the diploma has to be included in application, if the applicant has already received it.
The language skills of the applicant must be at such level, that they enable the applicant to pursue studies at the University of Helsinki.
The degree (or the studies obtained so far) must be from the same field as the department or field of study, that the applicant wishes to become a student of.
The studies accomplished must be at their level, contents and grades such that they enable the student to continue his/her studies directly from the advanced studies in the field one is applying to.
The studies accomplished for the degree obtained must be finished with the grade good or better, depending from the local scale (at least C in the ECTS-system. In addition, the departments require, that at least all the courses that are included in the higher intermediate studies (C-study block; please also see the sections of the study-guide )containing the requirements department by department have been completed. The department of sociology also requires, that the GPA of the applicant in sociology is is at least 2+ (B in ECTS). If the studies taken by the applicant are not measured in Finnish credits, the applicant must enclose a certified transcript of the university where the applicant has taken his or her studies that show the amount and comprehensiveness of the studies. If the student has studying in a member-state of the European Union, the transcript must be presented in the ECTS-form. (ECTS = European Credit Transfer System).

The applicant can apply the study-right of only one subject (department) in this procedure.

Studies taken for the higher undergraduate degree (Master´s degree in Finland) and included in the Master´s degree will NOT be taken into consideration in this procedure. This procedure is not for those applicants, who already have the Master´s Degree either in Finland or abroad.

3. The Required Documents and the deadlines

Application forms can be obtained from the study office of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Address: Unioninkatu 37, tel 191 24808), open daily from Monday to Friday from 9-11 AM and 12-14.45 PM or from the following link:Application form for the direct admission in the year 2004 from the end of December 2003 onwards. Postal address is International Affairs´ Officer, Faculty of Social Sciences, PL 54 (Unioninkatu 37), 00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND. The file will be in pdf-format, and the Adobe Acrobat reader is needed to open the file.

The required documents are the following:

A certified true copy of the diploma
A transcript of the studies.
An official transcript of previous studies or an official certificate given by the university which clearly shows the studies on which the applicant bases his or her request to be accepted as a student at the Faculty. The documents must also show incontestably, that the applicant has indeed obtained the units or entities that he or she claims. All the studies required for the admission ought to be finished before submitting the application, even if the diploma has not yet been received.
A comparison of the studies The applicant must also make a written comparison between the studies s/he has accomplished and the requirements of that field of studies s/he has selected to apply to (all the requirements of the different fields of study available at the Faculty of Social Sciences are available at the beginning of the study-guides (ECTS-guides), at the beginning of their respective section). Also a separate table of reference has to be included in the application (pls. take a look at the example)
The application itself. Download the application form in PDF-format. The file is in pdf-format, and the Adobe Acrobat reader is needed to open the file.
The Statement of Purpose. On a separate sheet, briefly describe and explain
1. your motives to study at the University of Helsinki and
2. how your studies will be financed
3. reasons behind your choice of major subject and how you would benefit from studying that major at the University of Helsinki. Please specify how studying at the University of Helsinki relates to your career objectives.
The language certificate. The languages of instruction at the University of Helsinki are Finnish, Swedish and English. Applicants without a knowledge of Finnish or Swedish are asked to provide evidence of their proficiency in English, unless the studies have been accomplished in English language at an English-speaking university. Please see the listing of the acceptable language tests. All in all, a student without proficiency in Finnish, Swedish or English will have serious difficulties with various academic routines.
The study-guides of previous studies. The applicant must also include in his/her application the study-guides or their copies, that must clearly show the structure, contents, mode of assessment and books that form the degree in question.

The application and the enclosed documents must be returned to the Study Office of the Faculty by the 27^th of February 2004 by 16.15.Applications that are late will not be processed.

4. The criteria for the selection

The selection of the students is based on the decision of the Selection Committee of International Students, based on an evaluation and proposition done by the board of each department. All the applicants must present all of the required documents. The following criteria will play the most crucial role in the process:

success and comprehensiveness of the previous studies
how well the previous studies enable the student to continue the same field at the Faculty
the general quality and level of the the previous studies and where they have been taken
the grades obtained at the previous studies
when the studies have been taken

Also all these documents must be presented.

In the selection procedure special attention will be paid to the fact of how well the previous studies taken by the applicant compare with the studies at this university regarding their contents and how demanding they have been compared to the same studies, had they been taken at the university of Helsinki. As stated above, the completed studies must be at such level, that the student is able to continue his/her studies directly at the advanced level, i.e. without taking any courses that belong basic or intermediate studies. The studies which form the basic, intermediate and advanced studies can be found from the respective sections of the ECTS-guide of this Faculty. In other words, if the applicant does not have a large amount of the courses in the particular field s/he applies for, s/he can not be accepted. Also the minor subjects studied will be taken into consideration, and they have to support the major subject. For instance a student studying economics at this university is expected to take certain courses in mathematics and statistics (along with some other compulsory studies), and thus the applicant is expected to have finished those as well.

5. Notification of the results

Those who have been admitted will be informed no later than the 1^st of June 2004 in writing. Information on how to enrol at the Faculty will be sent along with the letter of acceptance.

Those applicants who were not accepted can apply next year in the Foreign Students´ Entrance Examination. The deadline to submit the application is the 31^stof January 2004 and the applications can be obtained from the Planning Officer of the Faculty or from here

Those applicants who are not satisfied with the results of the procedure have the right to file in a written rectification appeal at the Selection Committee of the International Students of the Faculty, but it has to be done at the latest two weeks after the applicant has got the possibility of hearing the outcome of the selection.