Eligibility criteria
General eligibility criteria
To be eligible to apply to a master’s programme at Tampere University, you must have:
- Bachelor’s degree - nationally recognized first cycle degree*
- an applicable bachelor’s degree at a university or a university of applied sciences in Finland
- a bachelor's degree completed in a university outside Finland which provides eligibility to pursue an academic master’s degree in the country where the awarding institution is located
- with a minimum scope of 180 ECTS credits, three to four years of full-time study
- from a relevant field for the master’s degree programme that you are applying to
- from a recognised institution of higher education
- A good command of the English language for academic purposes. For more information, please see Language requirements.
* Eligibility is also considered, if you have completed a master’s programme that does not include the completion of a bachelor’s degree first - such as a master’s degree completed in Finland before 2008 when the two-cycle degree system was introduced, or a so-called long-cycle master’s degree conferred by a foreign institution.
Admission to studies leading directly to a master's degree will be based on your bachelor's degree conferred by a university or a university of applied sciences. Depending on programme-specific admission requirements, the programme may also consider additional factors and/or skills previously acquired by applicants when evaluating applications.
The minimum scope of a previous degree conferred by a foreign institution is 180 ECTS credits (or 3–4 years of full-time study). The degree must confer eligibility to pursue an equivalent university master’s degree in the awarding country. The institution that conferred the foreign degree must be recognised by the official authorising body of the country in question. The institution must appear in the list of recognised higher education institutions with degree-conferring authority that is maintained by relevant public authorities in the country in question or an international organisation (such as UNESCO).
A previously completed master’s degree does not make you ineligible for admission, but applicants will only be admitted to study for a second master’s degree for particularly significant reasons. Tampere University reserves the right to not admit applicants whose prior qualifications nominally meet the requirements but who are found not to possess the required knowledge and skills.
Applicants in the final year of the Bachelor's degree
If you are an applicant in the final year of your bachelor’s degree due to graduate in the spring/summer of 2025, you are eligible to apply as long as the degree will be completed by the start of studies, 18 August 2025. This providing you fulfil all other requirements and deliver officially certified copies of your educational documents by 18 August 2025. Applications will be assessed based on the officially certified transcript of records which they submit at the time of applying. Please see special instructions for applicants in the final year of the Bachelor's degree.
Supplementary studies
Tampere University may require admitted students to complete supplementary studies to acquire additional knowledge and skills they will need to successfully complete their degree. These studies will be determined on a case-by-case basis. The scope of supplementary studies will be equivalent to no more than approximately one year of full-time study (up to 60 credits).
If you are already a student at Tampere University
As set out in the Tampere University Regulations (chapter 4, section 11), you may, at any one time, hold only one right to study towards a specific bachelor’s or master’s degree, or towards a specific scientific, artistic, or professional postgraduate degree or programme at Tampere University. You cannot be granted a new right to complete a specific degree or programme if you already hold the right to study towards a degree in the same field of study or have already graduated with the same degree, unless otherwise stipulated in the programme-specific admission requirements.
Programme-specific eligibility criteria
Each master's programme can define more detailed programme-specific eligibility criteria including, for example, more specific requirements concerning the applicant's previous education.
The programme-specific requirements are available on each programme’s admissions criteria in Studyinfo.fi.
Additional information on eligibility
Due to the high number of applicants, application documents cannot be pre-assessed. The number of eligible applicants annually exceeds the number of students that can be accepted. The student selection is made by the faculties’ admissions committees based on the applicant's bachelor's degree conferred by a university or a university of applied sciences, academic qualifications and merits shown in the application documents.
If you have received an official decision on refugee status (or similar) or have asylum seeker status in Finland, please see additional information Applicants with refugee status webpage.