Admission requirements
Students must meet the following admission requirements:
1. Academic requirements
Your previous education needs to be deemed equivalent to at least a Dutch academic Bachelor’s degree (wetenschappelijk onderwijs, WO) obtained at a research university (nominal duration 3 years). Please find more information about your admissibility with a non-Dutch degree here.
2. Programme specific requirements
The Admission Board needs to establish that you meet all of the following admission requirements:
- A sufficient background in the field of quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques of social science research
- A sufficient background in the field of political science
This can be demonstrated by having a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Political Science obtained at a research university and with a curriculum including social science research methods. After completing such a degree, you are sufficiently equipped with both quantitative and qualitative methodology and academic writing and analytical skills, which are requirements for admission to the programme.
Furthermore you are admissible to the Master’s programme in Political Science with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree obtained at the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) including a minor programme in Political Science, such as the VU FSS minor Political Science.
In all cases, your bachelor must be equivalent to a Dutch academic (WO) bachelor and therefore must be completed at a research university.
How to demonstrate that you meet the above requirements:
You are required to indicate in the course description section of the Application Form how you meet the programme specific admission requirements. The Admission Board decides based on your complete application whether you meet the admission requirements or not.
Premaster:
VU Amsterdam’s Faculty of Social Sciences offers a premaster/bridging programme to students who do not meet the admission requirements for the MSc Political Science. However, international students cannot apply to this premaster directly. International students must apply to the master programme. The Admission Board may award the premaster as part of their decision on an applicant’s eligibility for the master. The premaster is only a relevant option if it would be sufficient to cover the gap between an applicant’s academic background and the admission requirements. The premaster contains mandatory courses on both social science research methods and political science and is taught fully in English. The current content of the premaster can be found here.
3. English language proficiency requirements
You will have to demonstrate sufficient English language proficiency. You can find an overview of relevant information to demonstrate your English language proficiency on the language requirement page.
You can already submit your application form without having met the English language requirements, but if you are conditionally admitted, you still have to meet the English language requirements.