Let's get started with the burearucracy!!! The Application form

We are back again with a new post !!! This time talking about the Application Form to Aarhus University !!!

I still remember the excitement I felt on that Tuesday 27th February. The university made us got on our nerves postponing over an over the shortlist of students granted with an Erasmus exchange for the incoming academic year 2017-2018. They were supposed to announce it on the 1st of February…

We were many students applying for a limited number of places. As soon as the list was released, it spread like wildfire immediately. Everyone received that Whatsapp text message: “They have finally released the Erasmus grants resolution!!!”.  At this precise moment is when your heart gets shocked and stops until you find your name associated with the destination you were wishing for, in our case and yours: Aarhus, Denmark.

AAfter months of waiting, you have eventually achieved what you were looking forward. But then, all of a sudden you come up with the question: And now what? Your life is about to experience a 180-degree turn and you have no idea where to start !!!

We know that you, the incoming students for the following Autumn Semester 2018 have already gone into it, but hopefully, this post will serve as help and guidance for students in the subsequent semesters/years.

At this point, you have been granted by your university with the Erasmus exchange, true, but it does not mean at all that you just need to wait until the beginning of the semester to fly there and get started in your new life. You have not been accepted by Aarhus University yet!!! Therefore, the next step is applying for admission as an exchange student at Aarhus University. The Application is probably one of the toughest periods of the whole adventure. It involves much more bureaucracy than what you could imagine, but in the end, you will realize is nothing compared to what you are to experience, definitely worthy!!!

Our first advice: Make progress steadily and relentlessly with the Application, always keeping in mind the deadlines! Normally, the application deadline is on the 1st May, so you can spend almost two months gathering all the necessary information. However, we will share something important with you later.

The first step in order to gain access to the online application form is creating an account in the Aarhus University self-service system. Access this link to create it. You will also find here a useful step-by-step guide that will lead you to this Step I of the process: http://www.au.dk/en/exchange/admission-to-aarhus-university/applying-for-admission/step-1-creating-self-service-account/

You will be undoubtedly warned about it but: “You must start creating the exchange application within 24 hours of creating the self-service account. Obviously, you do not need to finish it that same day!!! (Don’t forget to change the language at the top right corner of the screen, Danish is being a bit tricky to understand at the beginning, and for the rest of your stay unless you are one of those “the one in a million”).

Hopefully, now we are all ready to move to Step II !!!

Accessing this link and clicking on the university you are to belong, a new step-by-step guide will automatically arise: http://www.au.dk/en/exchange/admission-to-aarhus-university/applying-for-admission/step-2-creating-application/

The emergent document will have a similar format to this one:

Download the PDF document clicking on the highlighted red circle at the top right to read the process more comfortably.

We are not going into every step in the application, but we will provide you with some feedback about those sections that were confusing for us and some tips we came up with:

- You can create more than one application form. Do not worry if you make this mistake unintentionally. What you are actually creating are drafts and the Aarhus University will only assess the one you Submit.

- Make sure you choose the right university (in case of engineer students from Valladolid: Faculty of Science and Technology). If you select the wrong one, you will receive a message warning about your error after some days. THAT IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS WE RECOMMEND FILLING OUT THE APPLICATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!! Then, you will have to either modify the application or otherwise create a new one again.

- Before changing page or exiting, remember to save what you have entered by pressing the Save button at the bottom of the page - if you don’t, all changes to the active page of the application are lost. You will save your changes in your application draft.

- Regarding the Transcript of Records, the requirement varies among the different universities and degrees. It must be in English, that is for sure. Sometimes it is enough to present the non-official transcript which can be downloaded from the virtual platform of your university. We recommend asking in advance to your International Coordinator, Fie Bøje Misholt <[email protected]> for engineers. Every degree has one coordinator allocated. They will kindly reply you in a matter of hours, days or even weeks… Depending o how lucky are you, but they will end up replying 100% sure.

- Copy/scan of passport is literally referred to the passport, not the national ID in any instance. All the documents must be in PDF format.

- Respecting the language requirements, most of the exchange programmes demand a CAE level or similar. However, engineers were allowed to enrol in with an FCE level last year. Our recommendation: if you have enough time, go for the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE), as the requirements are likely to turn into stricter. We were warned about this last year.

- When you are to choose the study plan, if you have selected the proper university, it should automatically detect the courses you can enrol in. If you are undertaking the Bachelor’s Project, you will probably need to enter the course manually.  Remember to pick exactly the same courses which appear in your Learning Agreement !!! Oh, wait… we haven’t talked about the Learning Agreement yet !!!

It is basically the official document which contains the correlations between the courses you are taking at the receiving university and at your home university. In order to be valid, it must be signed by the Institutional coordinator – the Student House – the Faculty Coordinator, the Responsible person of the Erasmus and the Receiving Institution sending it to your International Coordinator. All of them must agree on it and sign BEFORE YOU LEAVE YOUR HOME UNIVERSITY. A possible recognition of courses could have the following format:

- HOUSING. Should I choose the option to be assigned housing by AU Housing Undoubtedly, YES. However, not only AU Housing will not always be able to find you a lease starting the date you prefer, but also half of the housing applicants are never offered a dorm for their stay. Let’s go one step at a time.

For the application, we suggest the option “Shared facilities house”, because the number of them around Aarhus is the highest, so it should be easier for AU Housing to get a room for you. Basically, you will share bathroom and kitchen with other 4-8 people, in most cases with internationals, but could also be with Danish students. It could turn out to be a bit annoying at times, but the “SHARING CULTURE” is one of the essential values you will gain during this adventure!   

About the preferences… Initially, we would have advised “Low price”, but after 9 months, we appreciate much more a better location, close to the centre or university rather than paying the least possible. Obviously, we are thinking in terms of comfort, if there are any financial problems involved, the option is pretty much clear.

Is it everything done at this point? NO! As we have already mentioned, it is complicated to receive an offer from AU Housing. For this reason, an alternative possibility to find housing at a dorm in Aarhus is to register in the following website as soon as possible: https://www.studenthousingaarhus.com/search . You can select whatever dorm you would like to move in, but pay attention to the waiting list, as you can find waiting periods up to 2 years to receive an offer for that particular dorm. YOU CANNOT MISS THE POST WE WILL PREPARE FOR YOU WITH EXPERIENCES OF DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS LIVING AT DIFFERENT DORMS IN AARHUS !!!

We have friends who received the offer up to 7th June!!! Javi and Antonio got an offer on the 23rd May, Nuria, unfortunately, had to try her best to find an apartment..! Therefore, do not lose hope to be allocated a dorm until then!

Worst case scenario: What if we are in early August and I don’t have anywhere to live in Aarhus?

No panic. You are neither the first nor the last one. The university won’t let you be homeless! Especially for the autumn semester, as in the spring there aren’t such big problems to find accommodation, AU Housing will place caravans in three different points around the city where you can stay for a maximum of one month and a half so that you have somewhere to sleep while you are visiting apartments and apartments trying to find one which suits you! Unfortunately, it is not for free and the conditions are not the best, but it is better than nothing!!!  

In addition, you should go past the International Centre every day, because they can provide you with a housing offer if someone is unexpectedly moving out!

Our final advice: Fill out the application form as soon as possible! Why? We cannot 100% prove it, but based on our experience, people who submitted the application first were the ones who received a housing offer, the majority of them!  

We are finally ready to finish the process clicking on: “SUBMIT APPLICATION”. You will immediately receive an email confirming that your application has been submitted. The die is cast!

And I reckon it’s been enough for today!!! Hope you have gained some more knowledge on this post and we are looking forward to seeing you liking our incoming post: “HOW TO TRAVEL TO AARHUS”

Nuria, Javier & Antonio

Photo gallery