Students whose skills in the language of education do not in reality meet the proficiency meant at the Government Decree on University Degrees may be exempted of it upon application. This can be the case if, for example, you have moved to Finland during the last grades of comprehensive school with Finnish or Swedish as a mother tongue in the diploma and have studied upper secondary school in an international programme. Read more about the language of education here.

The maturity essay of a student exempted of demonstrating proficiency in the language of education will be checked only content-wise, not language-wise. Read more about the maturity essay under During your studies > Thesis.

Students who have not completed the upper secondary school B1 syllabus in the second national language (minimum of 5 compulsory courses) or who have been exempted of it in previous education may be exempted of demonstating proficiency in it upon application.

A student granted the exemption shall complete minimum of 2 ECTS additional elective language studies substituting the language tests. Read more about the exemption here.

Exemption of requirements in the foreign language is mainly not possible. For further information, please contact your programme's planning officer or Manager of academic affairs in your school.

The Ilkka Kontula Foundation awards incentive scholarships for academic excellence to top-performing students who are pursuing a Bachelor of Science (Economics and Business Administration) and have earned at least 80 credits in their first three academic terms as an attending student. The recipients of the Ilkka Kontula Foundation scholarship receive a certificate of award and 1000 euros. 

Academic performance is determined on the basis of the weighted grade average of the credits earned in the first three academic terms in which the student has enrolled as an attending student. Only study attainments graded on a scale of 1 to 5 are included in the calculation of the weighted average grade. Study attainments graded Pass are not counted towards the average grade, but they are counted towards the total number of credits earned in the first three academic terms. 

The study credits for the third attendance term must be registered by the end of February, and the student has to apply for credit transfers by the first week of February at the latest. Please note! The processing time for credit transfer applications is three weeks.

The incentive scholarships of the Ilkka Kontula Foundation are awarded in May-April annually. 

The dean of the School of Business wants to encourage students to graduate with excellent grades in the target time set for their degree. To this end, the school publishes a Dean’s List in a special event every October. Students on the Dean’s List will receive an incentive scholarship of 1000 euros and a certificate of award.  

To make it to the Dean’s List, students must finish their degree within the target time set for the degree and rate among the top 3% in academic performance among the students who began their studies in the same year. Students do not need to apply for inclusion on the list: the school checks the eligibility of all its graduates at the end of each academic year. 

Academic performance is determined on the basis of the weighted average grade of all the studies towards the degree.  

The target time (or the normative duration of studies) is  

• no more than 10 academic terms as an attending student for those pursuing both a bachelor’s and master’s degree at the Aalto University School of Business. 
• no more than 4 academic terms as an attending student for those pursuing only a master’s degree at the Aalto University School of Business. 
• no more than 6 academic terms as an attending student for those pursuing only a bachelor’s degree at the Aalto University School of Business. 

The target time does not include terms that the student has been enrolled as a non-attending student.