Admission requirements

Minimum eligibility criteria

  1. A Bachelor’s or equivalent undergraduate degree (at least 180 ECTS) from an accredited university, in computer science, software engineering or equivalent subject.
  2. Good command of English language: TOEFL iBT (minimum score 93) or IELTS Academic (minimum score 6,5 with no individual score under 6).

Admission requirements

  1. Degree requirements

EDISS requires knowledge of basic computer science, software engineering, and applied mathematics. The student should be able to solve basic computer science problems, to build a given software artefact (e.g. a requirements model, a design model), to improve and fix a given design.

The student should be eager to learn new technologies and methods, instead of only working with technologies or methods she/he has prior knowledge of, and be capable of sharing and producing knowledge in a team.

Degree certificate

Applicants must have a Bachelor’s or equivalent undergraduate degree (at least 180 ECTS) from an accredited university in computer science, software engineering or equivalent subject. The applicant is expected to have passed courses in several of the following areas: computer science (e.g. programming, algorithms and data structures), basic computer architecture, computer networks, software engineering and mathematics.

If proof of qualification is not available at the time of application, students will be conditionally admitted, and they are required to submit the required degree certificate and transcript of academic records and their translations by July 26th, 2024 at 15:00 (Helsinki time) to finalize the admission procedure. The applicants should also attach an official statement from the higher education institution which states the expected graduation date and the missing courses in the application form.

2. Language requirements

All applicants must have good English language proficiency. The English language proficiency must be proved by

  • TOEFL (iBT) test: minimum score 93
  • IELTS (Academic) test: minimum score 6,5 (with no individual score below 6)

The TOEFL reporting code for Åbo Akademi University is 9880. For IELTS, when possible, choose Åbo Akademi University for results to be sent and confirmed. The test results must be valid and verifiable at the test organizer at least 14 days after the end of the application period. Most test results are valid only for two years. Please note that no other tests, or versions of the above-mentioned tests (e.g. Home edition), will be approved to demonstrate the English language proficiency.

Exemption criterion

The English language test is NOT required from applicants who have received their secondary education in English, or have completed a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree with English as the language of instruction (and mentioned in the diploma), in a university or university-level institution in one of the following countries:

Note that to be exempted to provide an English language test score, the degree certificate must mention English as the language of instruction, and the degree programme must be completed in one of the countries listed above. Degrees completed as distance education or studies on an offshore campus are not accepted even though the degree would be issued by a university in one of the countries mentioned above. 


Application enclosures

The EDISS Consortium requires the following scanned enclosures (in color and pdf format) attached to the online application:

A diploma supplement, if applicable, gives additional information on the received degree. It is included in the degree certificate. When the applicant provides the degree certificate in the online application form, all the pages of the documents that contain any text, serial numbers, stamps, etc, need to be scanned.

The minimum scores of the two accepted English language tests are stated below.

  • TOEFL (iBT): minimum score 93
  • IELTS (Academic): minimum score 6,5 (with no individual score below 6)

If the applicant fulfills the exemption criterion, she/he can instead upload her/his academic document, where the language of instruction is mentioned, to the online application form.

Please upload a color copy of your valid passport in the online application form.

If, however, your passport has expired, please upload a copy of your current expired passport to the online application form together with a copy of another ID card which is valid and in English (or officially translated in English).

The document that is used to demonstrate the place of residence of the applicant must

  • be issued within the 12 months prior to the submission deadline of applying,
  • include the current address of the applicant,
  • include the name of the applicant
  • and be in English or officially translated in English.

Documents that fulfill all these above-mentioned requirements are accepted as proof of place of residence.

Examples of documents that can be used if they fulfill all the above-mentioned requirements:

  • A residence certificate issued in accordance with the candidate's municipality's normal registration rules
  • A certificate from the candidate's place of work, study or training institution issued by the employer in question.
  • A certificate issued by the police office in your city
  • Passport
  • Driver's license
  • A renting contract
  • A phone/electricity bill

Applicants can also decide to use the EDISS certificate of residence template for getting this information.

Applicants are required to use the EDISS CV template. This version can be filled in on the computer.

The EDISS CV is divided into 6 sections which are

  1. Personal information
  2. Education
  3. Relevant work and/or entrepreneurial experience
  4. Relevant international experience
  5. Relevant other experience
  6. Other skills and accomplishments

Instructions:

  • There is room for 2 educations. If the applicant has only one education, s/he shall leave the other field for education empty.
  • The applicant can indicate a maximum of 4 experiences under section "Relevant work and/or entrepreneurial experience". The applicant should give additional information on the experience/s in the empty space between the different experiences. The applicant can e.g. write why the listed experience is relevant for EDISS and what s/he learned from the experience. The applicant is not required to fill in the maximum number of experiences. If the applicant has no experiences to be put in this section, s/he shall leave the section empty.
  • The applicant can list a maximum of 3 experiences under the sections "Relevant international experience" and "Relevant other experience". The applicant should give additional information on the experience/s in the empty space between the different experiences. The applicant can e.g. write why the listed experience is relevant for EDISS and what s/he learned from the experience. The applicant is not required to fill in the maximum number of experiences. If the applicant has no experiences to be put in these sections, s/he shall leave the section/s empty.
  • In the last section, "Other skills and accomplishments", the applicant can list any other skills and accomplishments that have not already been mentioned previously. The applicant can also list her/his hobbies in this section. There is room for a maximum of 3 skills/accomplishments/hobbies in this section. The applicant is not required to fill in the maximum number of skills/accomplishments/hobbies. If the applicant has no experiences to be put in this section, s/he shall leave the section empty.

General instructions

  • The answers cannot exceed the space indicated in the different sections.
  • The applicant is responsible to decide her/himself what information s/he wants to give and in which categories these experiences shall be put.
  • The applicants should not indicate the same experience in several categories.
  • The CV will be assessed as a whole. Applicants can see the evaluation criteria here.

The recommendation letters must contain a signature, and preferably an official university letter head and a university stamp. The EDISS programme office only accepts academic recommendation letters. The recommendation letters can be submitted directly by the applicant to the online application form.

In the case that the professor/lecturer only accepts to send the recommendation letter directly to the EDISS programme office himself/herself, this is accepted as long as the letters arrive to ediss@abo.fi within the application deadline. Letters that arrive later will not be reviewed and taken into account when evaluating the application.

If the letters are sent by email directly from the higher education institution, the subject line of the email must follow the form stated below:

RL_last name of the applicant_first name of the applicant_application ID

Applicants are required to submit a motivational video where they answer the following question:

"What is your main motivation to apply for the EDISS programme and why should you be chosen to the programme?"

The length of the motivation video should be 2 minutes (+/- 3o seconds). The most common video formats such as mp4, mpeg, ogg and mov are accepted. The motivation video is the only accepted attachment in the online application form that does not follow the pdf-requirement that is in place for all the other attachments.

In the online application form applicants have the possibility to list any relevant experiences in the following categories:

  • Professional and/or entrepreneurial experiences
  • International experience
  • Other experiences (e.g. volunteer experience, community involvement, summer school).

All the experiences must be relevant for the EDISS programme and it is up to the applicant to decide the category in which the experience belongs to. Applicants are required to provide certificates of the experiences that they list in the online application form.

Last updated on 25 September 2023