Can Finland be an Alternate destination for Middle class students?

The Winter application season is Coming soon!!!!

(I personally am terribly disturbed by the ongoing genocide in Bangladesh. The purpose of this post is not to promote my business in any way. I don’t even work professionally with Finland application. but every day since the internet was reopened I got hundreds of emails from students who are desperate to leave this country. Its easier to answer them through a post like this rather than reaching out individually. Here is my take on Finland university admission process. Please excuse me if I make any unwilling mistakes everything is based on the information found on various official sites.)

I have been professionally helping Bangladeshi Students who want to study in Canada for the last 3 years. Over the years the Canadian dream is getting harder to achieve for most of the middle class students in Bangladesh. Exorbitant amount of tuition fees, complex visa process and mismanagement of the IRCC departments has left even the fully funded applicants in a precarious state. In this circumstance I have been desperately looking for some alternate countries where middle class students can study at an affordable cost. Finland was almost too good to be true. Let talk about the pros and cons of studying in Finland

Pros: 

1. Tuition Fees are affordable compared to North America and Australia

2. No Application fee to the Finnish universities. 

3. You can bring your spouse

4. Simpler and transparent process of showing financial sponsor. 

5. Anyone can be your sponsor. 

6. High visa ratio. 

7. High standard of living especially for the permanent residents and citizens. 

8. Comparatively faster path to be permanent resident after study. 

Cons: 

1. Language barrier since this is not an English speaking country. 

2. Harder to get a job since Finland is a smaller economy. 

3. Cold and dark winter. 

4. High tax country. 

Application Details:

You have to apply to all Finnish universities from one central government website. All the University related information can all be in this website. This website also has all the information in an organized manner, you can filter out easily to find your desired courses. There are two main application seasons in Finland. Winter and Fall. Fall is the biggest semester. All the courses and the highest number of scholarship opportunities are available during the fall semester. 

Fall:

The application window for fall semester starts from 3 to 17 January approximately every year. There is usually a 14 day window for application submission. You should have all the documents ready and try to submit your application as soon as the window opens. 

Winter:

It is the smaller intake. The Opportunity to get funding is comparatively less and the number of available seats and the programs are also smaller in number. The application window for winter 25 will open on 28th of August, 2024 and will end on 11th September. So anyone who is interested in studying in Finland should start gathering the documents right now if they want to catch the winter semester. 

Now let's talk about the required documents for Graduate application

1. Passport

2. NID

3. Photograph- Euro format

4. All academic doc attested by Education board, Education Ministry and foreign ministry

5. English Proficiency ( Mainly for the research Universities) 

6. CV- Europass 

7. Bank solvency and bank statement

8. Statement of Purpose

9. Health Insurance

10. Police Clearance

Requirements:

There are two kinds of universities for the ms level students. The University of Applied science and the research Universities. The requirements sighly vaies

Applied Science University:

In order to be eligible to apply for a UAS master’s level degree program you must have completed a suitable bachelor’s level degree or other higher education degree and have a minimum of two years of work experience after the completion of the bachelor’s degree.

In certain fields of UAS master’s degrees, that is Crafts and Design, Media and Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance, and Music, the work experience can be replaced with artistic activities and merits.

Always check specific admission criteria directly from the study programme description.

List of master's degree programmes in universities of applied sciences

The Research Universities: In order to be eligible to apply for a master's level degree programme in a university you must have completed (or must complete by a specific deadline determined by the university) a bachelor’s degree from a university or a university of applied sciences (UAS) bachelor’s degree. Also Ielts is a must for research based MS programmes whereas apple science in most cases exempt the IELTS requirements. 

Always check specific admission criteria directly from the study programme description.

List of master's degree programmes in universities 

You can apply to a maximum of six universities at once without any application fee. Since there is no application fee they usually get a huge number of applications against a few thousand seats. That's why most of the well reputed universities will ask you to sit for an interview. For undergrad level the entrance exam mainly tests your basic English and mathematics skills. The MS level people have questions and their past career, research, future prospects and the reason behind choosing the university. Having a good idea about why you are applying to a certain university can increase your chances to crack the interview. 

A small number of seats are available for the applicants even after the deadline of combined application. These are admission on a rolling basis. But high;y recommend the students not to miss the combined application deadline as the chances for getting admission and funding is higher there. 

Many tacky youtube thumbnails will tell you that you can come to Finland without IELTS. But I personally discourage avoiding ielts. You can no longer apply to undergrad programs without ielts and MS without ielts require job experience. However, please take the language tests. In the highly competitive admission process a good IELTS score will set you apart from the others. 

That's everything from me. I will try to make a video explaining the application process using an online portal if my health permits. I am not particularly proficient in Finland as I have never been there. The sole purpose of this newsletter is to research alternate options for the students. I work mainly with students interested to come to Canada. If you need help with a Statement of purpose for any country I can help you with that for sure.