ADMISSIONS

The Admission Procedure for Warsaw International Studies in Psychology

The admission procedure for long-cycle five-year masters programme in Psychology with English as a language of instruction at the Faculty of Psychology takes place once a year over the course of June to early August. The procedure is conducted through Internet Recruitment of Candidates at the University of Warsaw.

In 2021 admissions, the qualification procedure will consist of two stages. First stage is calculating the score on the basis of the results achieved at the end of secondary education. Second stage is an additional entrance exam. 

Given there are places left, a second round of admissions is 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, 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. 

As a next step, The 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. After successfully completing all the stages, you will be accepted to the University of Warsaw.

Schedule of admissions for 2021/2022 academic year

Start of the registration in IRK: 7th June 2021

End of the registration in IRK: 5 July 2021 at 23:59 CEST

Additional entrance exam: 13-16 July 2021 (conducted online!)

Results are announced: on 19th July 2021 at 14:00 on the candidate’s IRK account.

Delivering the original documents: 20-22 July 2021

Info about admissions: study@wisp.uw.edu.pl or (+48) 22 55 49 845

Internet Registration System (IRK)

All candidates are required to register in the IRK system and need to specifically select the studies they apply to. Selecting the specific studies is crucial as otherwise the system does not know to which program you are applying. You first need to:

Create your own IRK account,

Register to the program of studies,

Upload scans of required documents.

Without signing up specifically for Psychology in English we will not see you as a candidate for our studies in the system and as a consequence cannot process your application. The IRK will let candidates create accounts from ca. April but registration for specific fields of study will be open from 7th June 2021.
It is your IRK account where you will be able to communicate with the admissions officer and find the results of the admission process.

Application fee

The application fee for applying to one program of studies in 2021/2022 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 2021 admissions the qualification procedure will consist of two stages. The first stage is calculating the score on the basis of the results achieved at the end of secondary education. The second stage is an 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

The Secondary Education results

The admission to the University of Warsaw is limited 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

The purpose of the exam is for us to see if candidates possess a number of characteristics and qualities that we deem important for students and future psychologists to have. We believe that having good grades in high school is desirable but that grade average is not necessarily the best or the only way to estimate whether a candidate will be a successful student, psychologist or scientist in the future. 

The additional entry exam is going to be conducted in English and is based on a popular science book in the field of psychology read by the candidate. For the admissions in 2021 we ask our candidates to read ‘The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion’ written by Jonathan Haidt.

At the exam a committee of at least three lecturers from our program will ask a number of questions and evaluate a 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).

In order to verify whether candidates read and understood the book or not, 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 will be calculated of all the commission members’s scores and summed. Next, the averages of the three categories will simply be summed up to give a candidate’s final score (between 0 and 100 points). Irrespective of the number of free positions candidates who have not obtained at least 60 points 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 in case they are not being a native English speaker.

This requirement does not apply in case you have completed high school education conducted entirely in English. 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) and 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 If your language proficiency is too low, it is possible to enroll in a 1-year preparatory English course organized by the University of Warsaw.
5. Proof of payment of the 100 PLN application fee. Details upon the payment are on the Admission Offices’ Page