ETH Zurich Admission Requirements 2027 for International Students

Requirements

Bachelor

• A secondary school certificate substantially equivalent to the Swiss Matura; country-specific conditions are published by swissuniversities.
• Depending on the certificate: admission without an entrance exam, with a reduced exam (4 subjects) or with a comprehensive exam (8 subjects: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, German and a second foreign language).
• German language proficiency sufficient to follow teaching, since nearly all bachelor's programmes are taught in German; a command of English is also expected.
• Application through eApply between 1 December and 31 March for autumn semester entry.

Master

• A bachelor's degree considered equivalent to an ETH Bachelor's in a relevant subject, meeting the specific programme's minimum grade average and any programme-specific prerequisite coursework.
• A valid language certificate for the programme's teaching language (English, German, or both for some programmes); ETH accepts IELTS Academic, TOEFL iBT, Cambridge C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency, each no more than two years old (five years for C2 Proficiency and a C1 Advanced grade A), but does not publish a required minimum score.
• Applicants with an international bachelor's degree apply by 30 November for autumn semester entry; applicants with a Swiss bachelor's degree apply by 30 April.
• Programme-specific documents such as a CV, motivation letter, references or a standardised test score where the department asks for them.

Documents

Official transcripts and certificates from every university or school attended, certified copies where the original is not in German, English, French or Italian; a valid language certificate for the teaching language; a CV; a passport-style photo and passport or ID copy; and, for some master's programmes, a motivation letter, academic references or a standardised test score such as the GRE. All documents are uploaded through eApply; files are limited to 5 MB each, 20 MB for school reports.

How to apply

1. Check the country-specific admission requirements on swissuniversities and, for a bachelor application, find out whether an entrance examination applies to your certificate.
2. Gather transcripts, certificates, language certificates and any programme-specific documents.
3. Submit the online application through eApply within the published window: 1 December to 31 March for non-Swiss bachelor applicants, 1 to 30 November for master applicants with an international bachelor's degree, or 1 to 30 April for master applicants with a Swiss bachelor's degree.
4. Pay the CHF 150 non-refundable application fee per programme.
5. Wait for the Admissions Office to screen the application on formal grounds, then for the relevant Admissions Committee to assess it against the programme's own requirements; ETH states a decision within two to three months of the submission deadline for master applicants.
6. If admitted to a bachelor's programme that requires an entrance examination, register for and sit the examination, held between 15 September and 15 October.

English test waiver

ETH Zurich requires a valid English certificate (IELTS Academic, TOEFL iBT, Cambridge C1 Advanced or C2 Proficiency) for most master's programmes taught in English, but its own language-requirements page does not publish a required minimum score; certificates are checked for validity (TOEFL, IELTS and C1 Advanced no more than two years old, C2 Proficiency and a grade-A C1 Advanced no more than five) rather than against one published cutoff, and each department assesses the certificate against that programme's own profile of requirements. An applicant is exempt from submitting a certificate at all if they hold a Swiss Matura, a Bachelor's degree from ETH Zurich or EPFL, or a Bachelor's degree that an official letter from the awarding university confirms was taught completely in English.