Admission requirements

You will first need to fulfil our general eligibility requirements. Only eligible applications proceed to the academic evaluation where the student selection criteria is applied.

General eligibility requirements

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

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

Please see further details below.

Requirements concerning previous higher education institution and degree

Applicants should hold a Bachelor degree* awarded by a university or a higher education institution.

• The awarding institution has to be a recognized part of the official national education system of the country, i.e., to be listed as a degree-granting higher education institution by the country where it is located or by a relevant international organization such as UNESCO.
• The scope of a relevant degree awarded by a higher education institution must be equivalent to 180 ECTS credits or at least three years of full-time study. The degree must give eligibility for Master-level studies in the awarding country.

*) Applicants in their final year of studies are eligible to apply provided that they will graduate by 31 July 2021. If the applicant is not able to graduate on time or fails to deliver a degree certificate by the given deadline, their conditional acceptance to the programme will be cancelled.

Requirements for English language proficiency

Our language of instruction is English, and the applicants are expected to have an excellent command of it. The accepted 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

*) Also IELTS Indicator (Academic) and TOEFL iBT® Special Home Edition/Home Edition are accepted in the 2021 admission.

The minimum requirements are very strict. If your scores do not fulfil the minimum score requirements, your application will not be processed further. You cannot combine scores from different test dates (e.g. TOEFL MyBest scores is not accepted).

IELTS, TOEFL and PTE results are valid for two years starting from the test date. Thus, test results from the tests taken on or after 23 November 2018 are acceptable in the 2021 application round.

Only the language tests mentioned above are accepted. For further information on language test result deadlines and submitting your test scores for verification, see How to apply -> Step 4.

Exemptions from the English 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, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, an EU/EEA country, or Switzerland.
  • The language of the degree must be stated unambiguously in the degree certificate or its appendix, or in the transcript of records or other official document issued by the awarding higher education institution.
  • 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.
• Degree students from SECCLO consortium universities.
• Applicants, who have attended SECCLO consortium universities as exchange students.

All other applicants are expected to present a valid English language test result, without exceptions.

 

Student selection criteria

Admission to the SECCLO programme is granted on a competitive basis, and the applicants are assessed based on their previous academic record. The selection is document based. The final evaluation of the eligible applications and the ranking of qualified students is made based on the following criteria:

1. Content of the previous degree(s)
Successful applicants are expected to have a high-quality Bachelor’s degree in computer science or information technology. Excellent candidates with degrees in other fields will be considered if they have sufficient studies in the required subject areas (see below).

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 computation
• 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.

2. Study success: grades achieved and pace of studies
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.

During the evaluation process, contents of the previous degree(s) and study success are assessed first. Only the applications that meet the requirements for these criteria will be evaluated further.

3. Recognition and quality of the applicant’s home university

4. Motivation and commitment to studies in the programme

5. Other relevant achievements (work experience, entrepreneurship experience, publications, awards, patents etc.)

6. Recommendation letters provided

7. English language proficiency

Studies in the SECCLO 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.

All six consortium universities participate in the evaluation of applications and in the joint selection meeting. The allocation of scholarships is based on the same criteria as the student selection decisions, i.e., the best selected students will be offered scholarships. The scholarship decisions are given together with 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.