The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is a public research university located in Amsterdam that was founded in 1632 and today is one of Europe's largest research universities as well as the largest university in the Netherlands. As such, the school has become a very popular choice in attracting international exchange students from around the world who desire an education from one of the best universities in the world.
The reasons many international and American students want to pursue an exchange program at the University of Amsterdam are numerous. The University of Amsterdam is internationally recognized as one of the top 30 universities in Europe and the top 100 in the world. The UvA has options to study across multiple disciplines from the Bachelor level to PhD level and also offers over 120 international Master's study programs taught in English.
The UvA enrolls over 2,000 international students annually from 80 different countries. All international students are supported by an active International Student Network that helps students with things like opening a bank account, applying for visas and finding a place to live. It also helps that the city of Amsterdam has been rated as one of the world's 15 best places to live in a 2010 quality of living survey, and when international students were polled, 94% of them said they were ‘very satisfied' about their safety in the city, and 95% said the UvA was ‘the place to be.'
Programs at the UvA offer a high level of independent studies in Economics and Business, Humanities, Law, Medical Sciences and Dentistry, and Science, as well as Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Because the University of Amsterdam has established exchange agreements within the framework of the EU Erasmus programs with over
200 universities worldwide, international students wishing to study at the UvA as an exchange student should contact their home university first in order to find out which fields their own university participates in with European universities and if there are any direct bilateral exchange agreements with the University of Amsterdam.
Bilateral agreements currently exist between the UvA and universities in Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Surinam, Turkey, and the United States. For more information on these agreements, prospective students should contact the Office of International Student Affairs at the UvA, as each UvA faculty has its own international office that co-ordinates program-specific student exchanges.
Students who are already enrolled in a degree program at another university and desire to study at the University of Amsterdam for just one semester or one academic year can become an exchange student and still remain registered at their home university. Exchange students pay tuition fees to their home university and not to the University of Amsterdam. Exchange students will not receive a degree or diploma from the UvA, but instead receive an official transcript for the courses taken and the credits earned are transferable to their home university. The UvA also offers full bachelor’s and Master’s programs at standard international student tuition rates.
