Application & Admission

The Honours programme is a unique opportunity to broaden your horizon, learn to understand and continuously direct your personal development and get experience in multidisciplinary problem-solving together with a like-minded group of peers. Students often flourish in our programme and take their skills with them to their regular studies (or to their study association, student team, in their work etc.). In our experience, therefore, the Honours programme benefits your regular study rather than obstructs it. However, we do ask a commitment of students to take on the additional workload (we recommend having at least 8 hours a week for self-study outside of the 4 lecture hours per week) for the full 1.5 years. While showing your willingness and ability to invest in yourself can make you distinguish yourself as a student, we take great care in making sure that the Honours programme does not get in the way of your regular study flow. We consider this through your motivation (whether you are willing to invest additional time next to your studies) and your study progress up to the moment of application (whether you can nominally complete your studies and take on the additional load).

At the start of the Honours programme, you need to have successfully completed all your study modules until the moment of application (nominal study progress), unless you are able to show that you have legitimate reasons for not meeting this requirement (like student activism, illness, etc.). Besides that, you need to be able to invest the required time per week to attend the lectures and for self-study. Specifically, students will only be admitted to the Bachelor Honours programme if:

• You are a first or second-year Bachelor student admitted to one or more UT Bachelor programme(s);
• You have a nominal study progress for the UT-Bachelor programme(s) you are enrolled in at the moment of application;
• Your motivation letter and interview show that you are talented, ambitious and motivated;
• Your motivation letter and interview show that you have the potential to complete the Honours programme within the designated period.

If you are uncertain whether you meet the admission criteria for the Bachelor Honours programme, you can join one of our informational events or contact the Honours Office for questions/referrals to track coordinators. 

In the summer holiday (after 2 quartiles), the admitted Honours students will be screened again for their study progress to ensure that they can keep a good study progress while attending the programme. They are allowed to continue participating in the Bachelor Honours programme if they have:

• Nominal study progress for the UT-Bachelor programme(s) they follow at the moment of screening;
• Successfully finished all the Honours modules they have participated in up until the moment of screening.

In exceptional cases, the Honours Dean may deviate from any of these requirements on an individual basis.

If you are motivated to participate in the Honours programme and if you have achieved good study results so far, you can apply for the Honours programme between December to the beginning of January each year (please sign up for our mailing list to be kept up-to-date with our specific application deadlines each year). For your application, you have to submit a motivation letter. The motivation letter should discuss the following questions (in any particular order): 

1. Introduce yourself: what are your interests, passions and talents?
2. What other extracurricular activities have you (or are you currently) participated in?
3. Why do you want to join the Honours programme?
4. How do you want to develop as a person, and how do you think that the Honours programme might help you?
5. Which tracks did you choose (i.e. your first and, if relevant, second preferred choice), and why did you choose these tracks? 

When writing your letter, please consider the following:

1. The letter should be between 500-750 words.
2. The letter has to be submitted as a PDF.
3. The letter should have your student number as the file name (e.g. Motivation_Letter_s1234567.pdf).

We furthermore ask you to provide us with your Study Progress Overview (SPO), including your average grade over all your courses. You can obtain this information as follows:

1. Go to osiris.utwente.nl;
2. Click on "Login Osiris Student" and log in with your student credentials;
3. Navigate to the Progress tab;
4. On this page, ensure that the boxes "Print all test results" and "Print weighted average grade" are selected;
5. Find your Bachelor's study from your list of exam programmes (usually indicated with the name of your study followed by "Bachelor Main Phase") and click on Download File.
6. The file should contain the courses you are enrolled in and their results. Check that there is a table with your average grade at the end of the document.

Your motivation letter, alongside your Study Progress Overview, serves as input for an admission interview with a teacher of your first choice track. In the interview, your motivation for applying and your motivation for your first (and, if relevant, any other) preferred track(s) is discussed. This interview will be planned when applying for the Honours programme. After the interview, you will be notified of the final admission decision before the start of the third quartile. Before the start of the Honours programme, the Honours Association Ockham will organise an introduction activity for the entire new cohort. Accepted students will be invited to take part in this session.

The application deadline for the Bachelor Honours programme is the 6th 11th of January 2026, 16:00.