Admission requirements

The Danish admission system is built around upper secondary school education. The University of Copenhagen welcomes applications from students of all nationalities and with upper secondary / high school education from all countries.

In order to be eligible for admission to a bachelor’s degree programme, you need to fulfil or expect to fulfil the following admission requirements before 5 July:

• General admission requirement incl. a grade point average equivalent to the Danish 6.0*
• Specific admission requirements
• Danish language qualifications

* Please note that the grade point average requirement does not apply to theology and musicology. In 2018, the requirement does not apply to the following bachelor's degrees: geography & geoinformatics, geology & geoscience and landscape architecture.

The admission deadline is 15 March. Please read more about when and how to apply.

Please note: Starting in 2020, a new quota 2 – with tests – will be in effect.

General admission and grade point average requirement

The general admission requirement is that you have accomplished upper secondary (high) school education.

For some countries, the upper secondary (high) school education is not enough and needs to be supplemented with one or two years of higher education. Please check the general admission requirement for your country:

• Applicants from the Nordic Countries (in Danish)
• Applicants with an International Baccalaureate (IB) or other international diplomas
• Applicants with a diploma from the EU/EEA Countries
• Applicants with a diploma from other countries (Non-EU/EEA and Non-Nordic Countries)

In addition to having accomplished upper secondary (high) school education, all applicants have to present a grade point average equivalent to the Danish 6.0 – or more. For exams from outside EU / EEA countries and others, where it is not possible to calculate the grade point average, we make an individual assessment to determine whether your educational qualifications are comparable to a grade point average equivalent to 6.0.

We look at your grades from all your educational credentials: upper secondary (high) school diploma, college diploma, bachelor’s degree and any additional (and supplementary) courses.

You can read more about foreign qualifications for admission to higher education in Denmark at the website of the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education.

Preliminary assessment of foreign exams

The University of Copenhagen offers a preliminary assessment of your foreign exams from 1 September to 12 December. This assessment will show to what degree your exams and other educational credentials (degrees, diplomas or certificates) meet the admission requirements for each of your chosen bachelor’s programmes. Furthermore, we will assess your Danish language qualifications.

You need to fill in the application form and attach all relevant documents in order for us to carry out the assessment. We will send you a detailed assessment within 4-8 weeks from applying.

Specific admission requirements

All degree programmes at the University of Copenhagen have some specific requirements, which must be fulfilled. These are some certain Danish course levels: A, B and C, corresponding to international advanced level, intermediate level and elementary level. These levels need to be fulfilled either in the upper secondary (high) school education or during further studies at college, university or as supplementary courses.

All applicants need to fulfil the requirement of their mother tongue at the highest level (corresponding to Danish A) and English B-level. The other specific requirements are usually Mathematics A or B, Natural Sciences A or B, History B or foreign language A or B.

Therefore, all applicants must include information and transcripts of level obtained in the relevant subjects (for example A/O level, Higher/Subsidiary level or European A1-C2 levels). We also need to know the number of years studied in upper secondary (high) school or college / university and in some cases the number of taught hours in the subject.

See the checklist of the documentation you need to provide and the specific requirements for all study programmes (in Danish only).

Applicants must fulfil the following specific admission requirements in the main study programmes at the University of Copenhagen (please note these are just a few examples):

* The applicant's mother tongue (unless it is Swedish, Norwegian or English) will usually fulfil the requirement about an additional foreign language for the Faculty of Humanities.

You can see the list of all bachelor’s degree programmes and their specific admission requirements here (in Danish only).

Please note that specific admission requirements may vary from one study programme to another and may differ from one institution of higher education to another. The requirements described on this website apply to the University of Copenhagen only. Prospective students are strongly advised to contact each institution for further information.

For information on admission to the University of Copenhagen, please contact University Education Services, Guidance and Admissions.

Danish language qualifications

The University of Copenhagen offers bachelor's degree programmes taught only in Danish. This is why all applicants with foreign and international examinations need to fulfil Danish language qualifications, which means have academic language skills in Danish.

Please note that the specific admission requirement about Danish A (mother tongue at the highest level) for all the programmes is not the same as the Danish language qualifications.

You can obtain Danish language qualifications by passing the 'Studieprøven i dansk', which is a nationally recognised test for foreign language speakers administered by numerous language schools in Denmark.

Students from the Nordic countries and with international exams with Danish, Norwegian or Swedish included in their school leaving examination are not required to pass a Danish language test. However, a course in Danish for Scandinavians at e.g. Studieskolen may be helpful.

If you have International Baccalaureate or European Baccalaureate, please see the information here.