After the end of their upper-secondary schooling, students may take the matriculation exam, a standardised test used as part of the University/Polytechnic entry process. Some schools also have their own entrance exams that students may need to take to be considered for entry. Schools might either consider matriculation exam scores & upper-secondary school grades, or the score on the entrance exam, or both. Admissions to Universities and Polytechnic schools are quite limited because there are not as many seats as there are applicants. For this reason, no matter how many schools accept them, each Finnish student is only allowed to accept admittance to one major at one school at any given time. Students may switch up to once per year, but they may not have multiple majors or attend multiple schools at the same time.
All universities and polytechnic schools require classes in both of the national languages of Finland (Swedish and Finnish) as well as at least one foreign language. In polytechnic schools, students receive a vocational curriculum, including a minimum of 30 credits worth of on-the-job training. Polytechnic students also take some general education requirements. Once they have completed their course of study, the students receive a certification and usually enter the workforce right away. After working for 3 or 4 more years, it may be possible to return for a polytechnic master’s programme, which provides them with additional credentials in their chosen field of work.
Universities are quite different from polytechnic schools in several ways. First, students do not need to graduate and then work before entering a higher-level programme. It is possible for a student to complete a bachelor’s degree and immediately enter a master’s degree programme. Upon completion of the master’s programme, the student could immediately apply and try to begin a Ph.D. Secondly, the curricula are different, focused less on the skills for a skilled job, and more on academic studies in the student’s chosen field. Lastly, when compared to Polytechnic schools, universities in Finland take less time to complete, requiring 180 credits as opposed to the 210 or 240 that Finnish Polytechnic schools take.
