Faculty of Social Sciences

The Selection of international applicants already possessing a Bachelor-level degree to the Faculty of Social Sciences in the year 2005

The following criteria for admission in the year 2005 has been decided by the Faculty Council on the 8^th of November 2004, and several changes were made regarding the procedure and criteria. Please read the page carefully.

Deadline 25^th of February 2005!

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 university abroad on the 8 ^th of November 2004. According to the decision taken, the following procedure was used in this form of admission in the year 2005:

1. The amount of students that will be accepted

At the maximum 53 students can be accepted at the Faculty of Social Sciences with this procedure, and this quota is 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 2005:

• Social Policy 3
• Social Work 2
• Social Psychology 4
• Sociology 2
• Social and Cultural Anthropology 2
• Economics 5
• Statistics 2
• Philosophy 4
• Political Science (includes Political Science Proper, International Relations and Administrative Studies as specialisation lines) 15
• Social Science History
  • Economic and Social History 2
  • Political History 2
• Communication 4
• Development Studies 6

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:

1. 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. 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 2005. A certified copy of the diploma has to be included in application, if the applicant has already received it.
2. The language skills of the applicant must be at such level, that they enable the applicant to pursue studies at the University of Helsinki.
3. 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.
4. The studies accomplished must be at their level, contents and grades such that they enable the student to continue his/her studies directly toward the higher university degree, i.e. Master´s degree, in the field one is applying to.
5. 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.If you already have a Master´s Degree either in Finland or abroad, you should apply to postgraduate studies, i.e. studies leading to Doctor of Social Sciences (D.Soc.Sc.) degree

3. The Required Documents and the deadlines

Please note, that the degree structure and the contents will change on the 1.8.2005, i.e. after the new University act will be in force.

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 2005. 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 requested documents must be in either in Finnish, Swedish, English, German, or French, if not stated otherwise.

The required documents are the following:

• certified true copy of the diploma
• 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 comparison and the reference table are made regarding only the major subject the student applies to, not for minor- or compulsory subjects.
• 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 either in English, Finnish or Swedish:
  • your motives to study at the University of Helsinki and
  • how your studies will be financed
  • 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.
• A summary of the Bachelor´s Thesis. The application must also include a thousand-word summary of his/her Bachelor´s thesis (about three standard (A4) pages) written either in English, Finnish or Swedish.

The application and the enclosed documents must be returned to the Study Office of the Faculty by the 25^th of February 2005 by 15.45. Late applications 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 study for the Master´s degree in 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 towards the Master´s degree. level, i.e. without taking any additional courses that belong basic or intermediate studies. Also, the study- right at this form of admission is only given for the higher university degree (i.e. Master´s degree), and the students accepted at this form of admission do not have the right to take a lower degree (Bachelor´s degree) at this Faculty.

Also, no studies that are a part of the applicant´s lower academic degree (Bachelor´s degree) can be used to compensate for the studies and requirements needed to accomplish the Master´s degree at this university.

The new University Act that will come into force on the first of August 2005 (715/2004)

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

All applicants will be informed of the results no later than the 1^st of June 2005 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 2005 and the applications can be obtained from the International Relations Officer of the Faculty or from here.

Applying via the entrance examination in addition to applying via the transfer procedure is strongly couraged, since due to the amount competition and the strict rules and conditions of acceptance in the direct admission procedure and the quotas, the Faculty can only accept a relatively small number of students (please see the statistics).

The reason for applying with both processes is that if one is not admitted in the direct admission, one can still take the entrance examination next summer, provided one has applied on time, i.e. the application has arrived to the Faculty before the 31^th of January 2005 (please see here for the applying via the entrance excamination). The deadline for submitting applications for the entrance examination ends before (31.1.2005) the deadline for the direct admission (25.2.2005). Naturally if the applicant is accepted with his/her previous studies, no entrance examination is required.

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.