Admission requirements for 2012
PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION
Master's Degree Programme in Bioinformatics offers interdisciplinary knowledge of bioinformatics. Courses are jointly managed by the University of Tampere and University of Turku, and take advantage of modern educational technology. Education is given in English, and the students of this international programme learn to work together with associates from different countries and scientific backgrounds. After the programme, in approximately two years, students will be 'bilingual', in terms of combined expertise on information technology and biosciences, and therefore applicants can be as well from biological as computational fields.
DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
General degree requirements
BSc degree that formally qualifies the student to access Master level studies in the country where it has been completed. This degree should correspond to at least 180 ECTS (European credits) or to three years of full-time study. It should be awarded by a full university (i.e. an institution of higher education offering a doctorate).
OR
A polytechnic degree from an ammattikorkeakoulu institution in Finland, which in combination with additional studies that the student will be required to complete while studying for the Master’s Degree (see Additional studies below) and possible work experience can be considered to qualify the student for Master’s Degree studies. Applicants seeking admission on the basis of a degree from ammattikorkeakoulu institution in Finland should note the language requirement concerning the Finnish language.
Programme specific degree requirements
The student’s previous degree on the basis of which s/he is seeking admission to the Master’s Degree Programme should be in a relevant field of study. Relevant fields of prior studies are biosciences and information technology, or other relevant fields of studies where sufficient knowledge of information technology and/or biosciences is achieved for studying in the Master’s Degree Programme in Bioinformatics.
The decision for admission will be based on the relevance of the awarded degree(s); the amount, relevance and grades of the courses in the degree(s); the language test result (see Language requirements); and the applicant’s preference for home university.
Additional studies
The contents of formally eligible students’ previous degrees do not always correspond to the academic level of the programme, and therefore admitted students can be required to complete additional, Bachelor level studies while studying for the Master’s Degree.
Additional, Bachelor level studies are always required from applicants accepted on the basis of a polytechnic degree from an ammattikorkeakoulu institution in Finland. Since the main language of instruction at Bachelor level is Finnish, knowledge of Finnish is necessary for all applicants with an ammattikorkeakoulu degree (see Language requirements).
Also students holding a Bachelor’s degree from a university can be advised/required to complete additional studies, e.g. in a case when the student lacks previous knowledge in a certain field which is required to be able to follow a specific course within the Master’s Degree Programme. These formally eligible students’ need for additional studies is minor compared to the holders of an ammattikorkeakoulu degree (see above), and the additional studies required from these admitted students (often self-studies) can be completed in English.
The additional studies are not part of the Master’s Degree. The extent and contents of the additional studies are defined individually for each student when a personal study plan is outlined in the beginning of the studies. Depending on the amount of additional studies, the study time for the Master’s Degree can be more than the targeted study time. The amount of additional studies cannot exceed 60 ECTS.
LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS
All applicants must prove their knowledge of English in one of the ways accepted by the Faculty.
Applicants seeking admission on the basis of a polytechnic degree from an ammattikorkeakoulu institution in Finland must prove their proficiency also in Finnish, since the additional studies that these students will need to complete in parallel to their Master level studies are available only in Finnish.
The language requirements concerning both languages are given on http://www.sci.utu.fi/tdk/en/education/applying/Languagerequirements.html
The majority of the applicants must pass a language proficiency test to prove their English language skills. The language requirements are not only formal - the universities expect their students to have good English skills to ensure that they are able to pursue academic studies at the Master level and communicate fluently with professors, other university staff and other students.
If you must pass an English proficiency test and have not yet passed one of the accepted tests, please remember that it can take a significant amount of time to find a suitable testing session and have the test results delivered to the University Admissions Finland. All language test results must arrive by the deadline and it is the applicant’s responsibility to see to that all enclosures and language test results arrive on time!
The dates for the testing sessions are given on the language test organiser's web site. At certain times of the year - especially from January onwards - testing sessions are very crowded due to a lot of application deadlines at that time of year.
APPLICATION PROCEDURE
Deadline
The application period is 1 December 2011 - 31 January 2012 for studies starting in September 2012. Students graduating after the application deadline may apply, on the condition that the application includes a statement from the home institution stating the expected date of graduation. In this case, a certified copy of the original degree certificate (in the original language), and an English, Swedish of Finnish translation (or an English-language Diploma Supplement, concerns graduates from European institutions of higher education), must arrive at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences by 31 July 2012 at 16:15 (local time in Finland).
Applications arriving after the deadline are not considered. Postmark dates on the applications will not be taken into account; the applications must arrive at University Admissions Finland before the above deadline.
NB. If an applicant is graduating in late July, it will be difficult to provide the degree certificate and its translation by the given date, and these applicants are recommended to apply in the next application round (next spring).
Application form and enclosures
The application template can be accessed from http://www.universityadmissions.fi/. After filling in the template the applicant must print and sign it and send it together with necessary enclosures to University Admissions Finland (located in Helsinki), where the applications are preprocessed. After this all applications are forwarded to the universities, where the contents of the complete applications are evaluated and the admission decisions are made.
Please follow the application instructions carefully and note that only complete applications are processed. If the application lacks enclosures a message is sent from the application system asking for the missing enclosures. Please note that during the processing of the applications we are not necessarily able to answer queries concerning the status of the application.
The following documents must be submitted by the applicant:
- A printed paper copy of the electronic application form, bearing the original signature of the applicant.
- An officially certified copy of the original degree certificate (in the original language) AND English, Swedish or Finnish translation (or an English-language Diploma Supplement, concerns graduates from European institutions of higher education).
- An officially certified copy of the original transcript of study records (in the original language) AND English, Swedish or Finnish translation (or an English-language Diploma Supplement, concerns graduates from European institutions of higher education).
- If the Bachelor's degree will be completed after the deadline, a statement from the home University stating the expected date of graduation.
- Certificate of knowledge of English (see Language requirements).
- Certificate of knowledge of Finnish (required only from applicants who are seeking admission on the basis of a degree from an ammattikorkeakoulu institution in Finland, see Language requirements).
Please see http://www.universityadmissions.fi/index.php?page=countrySpecificDocuments for country specific requirements in the way of certifying the copies and submitting the documents.
In general, the application documents required as officially certified copies must bear the official stamp and signature of an authorized university official from the degree awarding institution or a notary public. All translations must be made by an authorized translator. If copies of translations are submitted those must also be officially certified.
Please see description of required documents, official translations and officially certified copies: http://www.universityadmissions.fi/index.php?page=requiredDocuments.
The following document is optional and does not affect the application in any way. It is simply asked for identification purposes when handling the applicant’s documents, which sometimes contain the applicant’s name in different forms:
- Copy of information page of the passport or identification card containing the applicant's name, date of birth and photo.
In addition, during the application round, a secondary/high school certificate may be requested from the applicant, if this is necessary for determining the length of the applicant’s previous education (this concerns degrees from a minority of countries).
Applications sent by e-mail or fax are not accepted. Application documents will not be returned to the applicant. Incomplete applications will not be processed.
In addition to submitting officially attested copies of educational certificates, the accepted student will have to show the originals of his/her educational documents (degree certificate and transcript of study records) at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences in order to be able to register with the university.
Please note that the authenticity of all educational credentials and language results are verified.
ADMISSION QUOTA
If you apply to both universities within the programme, it must be indicated in the application form. Every year 15 students are taken to the programme in each university (a total of 30 students). All students are required to start in the beginning of the autumn term, and there is no separate admission for the spring term.