Admission requirements

To be considered for admission, you will first need to fulfil our general eligibility requirements. Eligible applications then proceed to the academic evaluation where the student selection criteria is applied.

General eligibility requirements

To be able to be considered eligible for SECCLO studies, you will need to fulfil these general eligibility requirements:

• Your previous higher education institution needs to be officially recognized.
• Your previous degree needs to fulfill our requirements.
• If a language test result is required from you, your test scores will need to fulfill our minimum requirements and you will need to submit the result as instructed.
• You will need to submit your online application and all compulsory application documents before the application deadline as instructed.

If there is a problem in any of these general eligiblity requirements, your application will not be eligible and will not proceed to the academic evaluation. Please see further details below.

Requirements concerning previous university and degree

Successful applicants should hold a Bachelor degree from a university fulfilling the following requirements:

• The university must be an official and recognized part of the national education system.
• The university has to be found on an official list of degree-awarding institutions (e.g. WHED) or in an international handbook that is completed by some international organization (e.g. UNESCO).

Applicants are eligible to apply if they have completed a 3–4 year Bachelor’s degree from a university or a polytechnic degree (e.g. university of applied sciences) or equivalent studies. The degree must entitle the graduate to apply for university-level Master’s degree studies in the country in question.

Applicants in their final year of study are eligible to apply provided they will graduate by 31 July 2020.

Requirements concerning English language skills

Our language of instruction is English. The applicants are expected to have excellent command of English. The recognized language tests and their minimum score requirements are listed below.

	Minimum total score	Minimum writing score
IELTS (Academic)	6.5	5.5
TOEFL iBT (Internet-based Test)	92	22
TOEFL PDT (Paper-delivered Test)	Reading 22, Listening 22	24
C1 Advanced (former Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English, CAE)	A, B, or C	–
C2 Proficiency (former Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English, CPE)	A, B, C or C1	–
Pearson Test of English (PTE Academic)	62	54

The minimum requirements are very strict. If your scores do not fulfill the minimum requirements, your application will not be processed further. Only the language tests listed above are accepted.

IELTS, TOEFL and PTE results are valid for two years starting from the test date. Thus, the oldest test date accepted will be 25 November 2017. The CAE and CPE results do not have an expiration date, however, only tests that can be verified online, i.e. tests taken after 2005, are accepted.

Exemptions from language test requirement: The language test requirement is waived for the following groups:

• Applicants whose higher education degree has been taken at an English-medium programme requiring physical on-site presence at a university in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, an EU/EEA country or Switzerland.
  • A minimum of one half of the degree must be completed in a country and higher education institution that meets the requirements for exempting the applicant from taking an English test. The language of the degree must be stated in the degree certificate or its appendix, or in the transcript of records or other official document such as diploma supplement, issued by the higher education institution in question.
• Degree students from SECCLO consortium universities.
• Applicants, who have attended SECCLO consortium universities as exchange students.

See further information on language test result deadlines and submitting the language test scores from How to apply -> Step 5.

Student selection criteria

Selection criteria to the SECCLO programme is a high quality Bachelor of Science degree or equivalent studies encompassing a minimum of 180 ECTS credits in Engineering (Computer Science or Information Technology) i.e. a degree consisting of at least three years of full-time studies.

Required background consists of sufficient studies in:

• mathematics (linear algebra, calculus, probability theory, statistics, and discrete mathematics)
• good programming skills
• algorithms and data structures
• databases
• theory of computing
• computer networks
• software engineering

Knowledge of the following areas is considered an advantage:

• additional knowledge of mathematical methods
• mobile applications
• web software and online services
• operating systems
• distributed computing
• embedded systems
• advanced computer networking
• information security and cryptography

The contents of the applicant’s previous degree(s) are evaluated based on the courses available on the official transcript of records and the course descriptions submitted. Relevant work experience, professional certificates and/or online courses are judged case-by-case, but they do not, in general, compensate for the university level studies that include also the theoretical foundations of the required subjects.

The applicant’s previous study success will be evaluated based on the grade point average (GPA) and results in key courses. Very good previous study success is expected.

Studies in the Master’s programme should provide genuinely new knowledge for the applicant. If the applicant already has a Master’s degree, the motivation letter should clearly indicate why another Master’s degree is necessary.

Evaluation criteria during the academic evaluation of applications

Admission to the programme is granted on a competitive basis and applicants are assessed based on their previous academic record. The selection decisions rely on the application documents submitted during the application period.

The student selection decisions are made and the selected students are ranked based on the following evaluation criteria:

• Content of the previous degree(s)
• Study success: grades achieved and pace of studies
• Recognition and quality of applicant’s home university
• Motivation and commitment to studies in the programme
• Other relevant achievements (work experience, entrepreneurship experience, publications, awards, patents etc.)
• Recommendation letters provided
• Language proficiency

During the evaluation of eligible applications, the applicant’s previous study success and contents of the previous degree(s) are checked first. Only applicants, who pass this preliminary evaluation, will be evaluated against the full set of criteria.

All six consortium universities participate in the evaluation of applications and in the joint selection meeting. The allocation of scholarships is based on academic merit, granted on a competitive basis, and decided in the Consortium Committee meeting. The scholarship decisions are given at the same time as the selection decisions.

Appeal process

The right of appeal means that the applicant has the possibility to request for rectification if they believe that there has been an error in the decision-making process. The appeal should be submitted to the SECCLO Consortium within 14 days after the publication of the selection results. All appeals against the selection decisions are processed by Aalto University. Applicants cannot appeal on the scholarship decision.