ETH entrance exam: overview of preparatory courses, offers and schools

It is not always easy for foreign prospective students or even Swiss students with a non-Swiss educational background to be admitted to study at a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. An ETH entrance examination is therefore the only way for many applicants to gain admission to an ETH degree program. This examination is designed to check the applicant's qualifications and clarify the extent to which their existing skills meet the requirements of the universities. Candidates register directly with the desired ETH and submit an enrollment application. The university then checks the qualifications and issues instructions on how to proceed. Depending on the existing educational background, which also depends on the country in which it was obtained, the ETH then registers the applicants for a reduced or a comprehensive ETH entrance examination.

As an ETH places particular emphasis on technical and scientific subjects, these are also compulsory. This means that both the reduced and the comprehensive ETH entrance examination require students to take mathematics, chemistry and physics as well as biology. Depending on your native language, German may be added to the reduced exam, while it is compulsory for the comprehensive entrance exam, as are English, history, geography and German literature. Which option is right for you depends on the extent to which your school-leaving certificate is similar or even equivalent to the Swiss Matura.

In Switzerland, you can prepare for the ETH entrance exam in preparatory courses, which can be completed either as a self-study course, an advanced course, an intensive course, an annual course or even a two-year course. During this time, you will acquire all the knowledge required to pass the ETH entrance exam and gain admission to a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The number of lessons varies greatly depending on the course you choose. For example, you can prepare for the reduced exam in 385 lessons in a classroom course or for the comprehensive entrance exam in up to 1,456 lessons in an annual course. The prices also vary accordingly.

Find out directly from the individual education providers about the possible courses for the ETH entrance exam and get comprehensive information about all the details. You can easily contact the relevant schools using our form, without any obligation, free of charge and quickly. You can also obtain comprehensive information about the ECUS examination and admissions to Swiss universities there and here on Ausbildung-Weiterbildung.ch.