ADMISSIONS

The Admission Procedure for Warsaw International Studies in Psychology

The admission procedure itself takes place once a year each year in late Spring and Summer. Candidates submit their application and documents online over the course of June. In mid-July additional exam is held for candidates and result of qualification is announced late July. The last step is submitting the hard copies of the documents.
Most of the process is conducted online through Internet Recruitment of Candidates at the University of Warsaw.

In 2023 admissions, the qualification procedure will consist of two stages. First one is calculating Candidate’s score on the basis of the results achieved at the end of secondary education. Second stage is an additional entrance exam – which can take place online. 

We offer 42 places and given there will be some free places left, a second round of admissions will be organized in September. 

The classes start at the beginning of October.

The procedure of applying in short:

In order to apply to the Psychology programme in English you have to have completed upper secondary education and have obtained a diploma allowing you to undertake higher studies in the country which issued your diploma. 

First step in the proces of admission is you have to register an account in University of Warsaw’s registrations system for candidates (IRK) where you upload the scans of required documents, sign up for Psychology in English programme and pay the admission fee. 

The University of Warsaw admission step by step video.

As a next step, Admission Committee at the Faculty of Psychology will evaluate your highschool results and then calculate your score based on your secondary education diploma. If your score is high enough, you will be invited to participate in an additional entry exam. 

For the entry exam, you are expected to read ‘The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion’ written by Jonathan Haidt and prepare for an oral exam conducted online.

Then, we calculate your combined score from your secondary education diploma and the additional entry exam.

If you get accepted as a candidate to the programme, you will have to deliver hard copies of the required documents within a given deadline. We are quite flexible with deadlines in some specific, personal situations. After successfully completing all the stages, you will be accepted to the University of Warsaw.

Schedule of admissions for 2023/2024 academic year

Start of the registration in IRK: 6 June 2023

End of the registration in IRK: 7 July 2023 at 23:59 CEST

Additional entrance exam: 14, 17-18 July 2023

Results are announced: on 20 July 2023 at 14:00 on the candidate’s IRK account.

Delivering the original documents: 21-25 July 2023 – there is room for some flexibility!

Internet Registration System (IRK)

All candidates are required to register in the IRK system, upload their documents, and select the studies they wish apply to.

Without signing up specifically for Psychology in English we will not see you as a candidate for our studies in the system. This will have an unpleasant consequence: we would not be able to process your application.  The registration for specific fields of study will be open from 6th June 2023. You can create your account earlier though and you are free to explore IRK now! 

Apart from the obvious function, IRK account will allow you to communicate with the admissions officer, find out the results, and it is considered formal way of communicating with the University.

Application fee

The application fee in 2023/2024 admissions is 100 PLN.

Application fee payment should be made no later than on the day after the deadline for registration to a specific field of study. When making the payment it is advisable to use a system that guarantees the quickest transfer of money. Candidate makes the application fee payment in PLN or foreign currency using an individual bank account number generated for each candidate by the IRK system.

For more information about payments please consult: http://rekrutacja.uw.edu.pl/en/application-and-tuition-fees/ the University of Warsaw Admissions Offices’s page

Calculating the scores

In 2023 admissions the qualification procedure will consist of two stages.
First the Admission Committee calculates the score on the basis of the results achieved at the end of secondary education.
Then, qualifying candidates are invited to additional entrance exam. 

The final result for Psychology programme in English as a language of instruction must be at least 50 points or higher, add is calculated on the basis of:

• points obtained during the first stage of qualification procedure – calculation of maturity exam results (50%)
• points obtained during the second stage of qualification procedure – additional entrance exam (50%)

Maximum number of points possible to obtain in the qualification procedure: 100

Maximum number of points possible to obtain during the additional entrance exam (second stage of qualification procedure): 100 Minimum number of points needed to pass the entrance exam: 60

Secondary Education results

Admission to the University of Warsaw is limited  only to candidates who have completed Secondary Education which allows them access to higher education in the country which have issued the given diploma. The calculation of the score depends of the type of the diploma, and for the detailed information it is best to consult the IRK page of the programme. 

As a general rule, we require all candidates to present grades or results of examination from four subjects:

1. Original language of maturity (Secondary School) exam or Polish language,
2. Mathematics,
3. Modern foreign language,
4. One of the following: Modern foreign language*, Biology, Chemistry, Philosophy, Physics, Physics and Astronomy, Geography, History, Computer science, Latin, Classic Greek, Management, Economics, Psychology, Anthropology, Politics, Social Studies

All scores are given the weight of 25% of the final score at this stage.

What matters in addition to your actual score is the level at which you took the subject. If you completed a subject on a higher or advanced level your score will count for the full 100%. If you took a subject at standard level however, only 60% of your score will be counted. However, if there is no information on the level at which you took a given subject, then only 80% of your score is taken into consideration.

The calculation of international candidates’ secondary school diploma results is adjusted to the Polish maturity exam grading system. Grades will be converted into a score between 0 and 100 and then the candidates score will be calculated. Here can be found an overview of the conversions of some of non-Polish diplomas.

The additional entry exam

We do believe that having good grades in high school is desirable, however the grade average is not necessarily only way to estimate  of succes. Conducting an additional exam allows us to predict whether a candidate will havea chance to become successful student, psychologist or scientist in the future. 

The entry exam will be a discussion about ideas presented in a popular science book in the field of psychology. This year the exam committee chosen ‘The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion’ written by Jonathan Haidt for you to read.

At the exam a committee of at least three lecturers from our program will ask a number of questions and evaluate candidate’s answers. Each member of the exam committee will evaluate a candidate’s answers for each of the two categories as follows: Understanding of the text (0-50 points) and Independent thinking (0-50 points).

The Exam Committee will ask candidates to explain essential topics and ideas mentioned in the publication.  

In order to verify whether candidates are able to make critical reflection about the text read they will have to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the concept mentioned in the book and formulate their own opinion providing reasonable arguments.

For each category, the average score will be calculated of all the commission members’s scores and summed up. This will be candidate’s final score  for the additional exam. Candidates who have not obtained at least 60 points out of 100 at the additional entry exam will not be admitted.

English Language Requirement

All candidates need to provide proof of a sufficient level of English language proficiency at the stage of qualifications.

If you have completed high school education conducted entirely in English, you are exempted from this requirement. Click the following link for an overview of accepted certificates. If you decide to take the IELTS exam, you need to have a score of at least 6.5.

The Documents Required

Before applying to studies you will have to create an account in IRK UW (Internet Registration System). You must attach a set of scanned documents listed below to your IRK account. PLEASE NOTE: non-submitting required documents by specified deadline is equal with resignation from undertaking studies. In justified cases the Faculty may extend the deadline for submitting documents.

1. Scan of your diploma and lists of grades/marks and transcripts of secondary education.
   PLEASE NOTE: if on your high school diploma there is NO statement saying that your diploma allows you to start studies at higher education institutions etc you should provide us with a separate statement confirming your right to apply to higher education institutions in your country issued by for example the Ministry of Education in your country or Polish consulate/embassy in your country or the embassy/consulate of your country in Poland. In case of diplomas issued by any of the EU/EFTA/OECD countries we will accept a statement issued by your school. This does not apply to Polish diplomas or IB/EB.
2. Legalisation or apostille  of high school diplomas – for candidates who DO NOT have an IB, EB or Polish maturity exam.
3. Sworn translation into English or Polish of the above-mentioned documents. If you have your documents already issued in English, you do not have to 
4. Documents proving English language proficiency. The copy of your certificate is a must already for this stage of the admission process. Please note that in case you wish to use IELTS certificate, your result has to be at least 6.5. 
5. Proof of payment of the 100 PLN application fee. Details upon the payment are on the Admission Offices’ Page