Application for exchange studies

• You must be enrolled at the University of Gothenburg at the time of application.
• The planned exchange studies must be conducted on a full-time basis and the credits earned must be transferable to your degree programme at the University of Gothenburg. Ask your international coordinator about credit transfer on your programme. Credit transfer
• Undergraduate students must have completed at least 60 higher education credits at the University of Gothenburg by the time the exchange begins. Students at Master’s level must be taking classes at the University of Gothenburg at the time of application, but they do not need to have completed a certain number of credits.
• You need to provide evidence of sufficient language skills according to the requirements specified by the host university.
• By the application deadline, you must be able to show that you have studied at a normal rate. Normal rate of studies means that you have carried out your studies on a full-time or part-time basis in accordance with the rate specified in your admission letter. You also meet the requirement for exchange studies if you have a Nais-certificate and recieve study support. 
   

In addition to the general eligibility requirements, your Faculty/Department may apply additional eligibility criteria. If you have previously been on an exchange via GU, this may affect your possibilities of securing another spot. Please check with your international coordinator to learn more.

You start by filling in the application form with information about what you are studying and the choices you wish to make. Please note that you must complete the entire form in one go; you cannot save it and return later. After submitting the application form, you will need to log in to the system and register your personal information and upload your qualifications.

Follow these steps:

• Enter all information requested in the application form.
• It is very important that you choose the right Faculty affiliation in your application; that is, you need to select the Faculty at which you are enrolled. Otherwise, your Faculty will not be able to process your application.
• In the application form, select the potential host universities you are interested in. You can choose up to six universities and you need to rank them in order of preference with your first choice at the top. For the best chance of securing a spot, fill in all six options with universities you want to study at.
• The application form also asks you to rate your language skills. Use the link below to access a document that helps you assess your language skills: Self-Assessment Grid
• You must fill in the entire form on one occasion. When you have completed the application form, you check the box "Send application - To the next step".

When you have completed the first part of the application by clicking on “Send application – To the next step”, an e-mail is sent to the email address you provided. The email contains information and a link to Mobility-Online.

Click on the link and register in Mobility Online and follow the instructions. You can now register your application by entering your personal data (including bank information in some cases) and upload mandatory documents.

Some, but not all, faculties require that you upload documents/attachments. Below is an account of documents that usually must be submitted with the application. Depending on your home department/faculty and the host universities you are applying to, there may be additional instructions regarding your online application. Read the instructions from your faculty carefully to ensure that your application is complete.

LADOK/grade reports

To provide evidence of your academic progress at the University of Gothenburg and other academic institutions you may have attended, you should upload a detailed LADOK report specifying all completed coursework under ‘Upload Transcript of Records’.

Read more about how to get an Official Transcript of  Records on Registration, results and certificates

Personal letter of motivation

Some student groups will be requested to upload a personal letter of motivation, depending on which faculty they belong to, and which institution they apply to. Check with the international coordinator or study councellor at your faculty/institution if you are unsure. In most cases, the letter of motivation must be written in English.

If you need to upload a letter of motivation, it should be written for the University of Gothenburg and NOT your desired host university. Note that your Faculty/Department may have special instructions regarding the content of the letter. In most cases, you will be asked to justify your choice of host country/university and how it relates to your current studies at the University of Gothenburg. Describe what makes you a good ambassador for your Faculty/University and specify why you want to go on an exchange. Note that you should only write one (1) letter, regardless of how many universities you are applying to.

CV

Some student groups should upload a CV. Your CV should contain relevant information, particularly regarding your work experience but also other relevant qualifications. You should for example include information about summer research, exhibitions, projects, lab experience etc.

Portfolio

Students at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts can enclose a portfolio arranged according to special instructions. More information can be found on your department’s website. You can upload a portfolio in pdf (up to a total of 20 MB for all uploaded documents). You can also choose to enclose a link to your portfolio.

When you have gone through the steps described above you must submit your application.

In the section “Upload and print documents”, click on the blue button “Submit application”, then click on the button “Forward to update”. Now click on the box for “Completion of documents (Submit application)”.

Your application is now submitted.

You can check that your application has been submitted by going back to the section "Upload and print documents" and seeing that the small checkbox now has a green tick in it, as well as the date and username of the step completed, indicating when this step was completed.

Please note! Some Faculties/Departments require that you print out and submit a paper copy of the application to the international coordinator. You therefore need to ask your Faculty/Department about this to be sure your application has been submitted correctly. You will receive you application in pdf in the step "Print/Save application".

Processing of Personal Data in Student Exchanges with Countries Outside the EU/EEA

All processing of personal data at GU is covered by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). When you, as a student, are about to undertake a student exchange with another university, GU will need to send your personal data to the host university. Some host universities are located in countries outside the EU/EEA, which means that your personal data will be sent to countries where the requirements for data protection do not correspond to those within the EU/EEA. These transfers are classified as  third-country transfers. Such transfers can pose risks to your privacy because GDPR does not apply outside the EU/EEA. The risks may include that you, as the data subject, may not have the right to information about further processing of the personal data or that the recipient otherwise does not comply with GDPR. The risks vary depending on the recieving country's own data protection legislation.

The information GU needs to send typically includes your first and last name and contact details. Sometimes more information is needed – for example, information about your academic results. In some cases, it may also be necessary to inform the host university that you, as a student, require disability study support (for documented permanent disabilities), which may mean that sensitive personal data needs to be sent to the host university . Such processing of personal data is particularly regulated and is carried out only after a thorough assessment and after you have received specific information about the potential risks of such processing.

Data protection varies significantly from country to country. GU is committed to safeguarding your personal privacy and apply data minimisation. You may therefore be asked to provide additional personal data, for example during the application stage. For questions regarding processing of personal data in relation to student exchange purposes, please contact your international coordinator. You may also contact GU’s data protection officer at dataskyddsombud@gu.se.

Your application is assessed based on the assessment criteria determined by your faculty/department/programme, and the exchange nomination spots are allocated accordingly. When there are more applicants to a partner university than there are available spots, the selection criteria are applied to determine which applications are prioritised.

Applications that include university-wide agreeements are assessed and ranked according to each faculty assessment criteria. Places are then assigned by International Centre through a lottery process. 

The few exchange spots that have not been allocated during the regular allocation process may be distributed afterwards to students who have not been allocated a place for any of their choices and who may be eligible for the spot based on factors such as course offerings or the exchange window within their program. Students who become eligible for such a place will be contacted via the email address provided in their application in Mobility Online.