Preparing your application

Be sure to start your application on time. It takes at least a year to successfully complete your application to an American university.

Admission requirements vary by institution. Each university has its own application forms and applies its own deadlines. You may have to submit the application forms to a central department, and you may also have to submit the forms directly to the faculty. Your registration will be reviewed at both the central level and the faculty level.

Naturally, all parts of the application must be received by the university before the closing date. Each institution has its own closing dates. The deadlines are generally between November and April prior to the academic year in which your studies begin. Check with the institution what the exact deadlines are and, based on your shortlist, schedule your application and financial aid application deadlines for each institution.

A complete application to a US graduate program usually consists of the following components.

Contact with professors

In graduate programs, it is common for the research group to decide on admission. Your application arrives at the graduate admissions office, which verifies that your application meets the specified requirements. The professors at your faculty then decide which students are and are not admissible to the program.

Does your chosen master’s program have a strong research component? Then it is wise to get in touch with the professors before applying. See who specializes in your field and in what ways you can contribute to the department’s research. However, it is important that you contact them with concrete information (your experience in the field, desired research and concrete questions about the possibilities for an assistantship, for example). It may help your application if the department is already familiar with your CV.

Also keep in mind that professors do not always respond quickly. You can calmly wait for the response.

This is especially true for academic master’s programs and PhD positions. For more profession-oriented master’s programs, it is not always necessary to make contact in advance.

Admission requirements

It is difficult to compare the American admissions assessment system one-to-one with the Netherlands. American universities have what is called a “holistic admissions policy,” which means that the admissions committee looks beyond just your grades and scores on admission tests — your CV also plays a role in their assessment of your application. An American university considers it important that you have also developed personally and that you show social commitment.

Personal statement

Writing a good personal statement is customized. For each institution at which you apply, you will need to write a different motivation, because the requirements vary from institution to institution and from field to field. The personal statement is one of the most important parts of your application to an American graduate program. In it, you motivate why you want to pursue a graduate program and why you want to pursue it at that institution in particular.

English language test

As a prospective student from a non-English-speaking country, you must at least demonstrate a sufficient command of English to study in an academic setting. Most American educational institutions want you to take an English language test for this purpose. You can choose from several language tests, including the TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo that you take online or at a test center in the Netherlands.

Transcripts

The transcript is an official summary of all courses and the grades you have obtained for them at institutions of higher education. Based on this document, the institutions in America assess whether your academic background qualifies you for the study you have applied for. The university also looks at your grade point average (GPA). Click on read more for more information on the calculation of grade point averages.

Admission tests

Some American universities require a score on one of the standardized admission tests, such as the GRE or the GMAT. Which test you need to take depends on the university, the field of study, and the level of study to be taken. In addition, each university has its own requirements for minimum test scores to be achieved. Familiarize yourself with the tests in time.

References

Letters of recommendation, like the motivation letter, are a very important part of the application. You should make sure that those who write them really have something to say about you. Among other things, the letters should highlight your analytical acumen, intellectual ability, creativity, and ability to conduct independent research. In general, three letters of recommendation will be requested. The letters can be sent directly to the institutions.

Ask your references to hold the document for you for some time so that they can submit it to several universities for you if desired.

Webinar

Prefer to watch a webinar? Below is a recording of our webinar on graduate programs in the US.