University application

Applications go through different systems depending on the country, and using the wrong one costs you an intake. Sweden and Finland run national portals — University Admissions and Studyinfo. Italy combines a university application with the Universitaly pre-enrolment step. Hungary's Stipendium Hungaricum runs through Tempus. Cyprus, Malta and Bulgaria mostly take applications directly at the university. The intakes and deadlines for your shortlist are shown below.

Work backwards from the earliest deadline that applies to you, which is almost never the admission deadline. If you are applying for a scholarship, that application usually closes months before general admission — missing it does not just cost you the funding, it often costs you the year, because the unfunded version of the plan was never affordable in the first place.

Before you submit anything, check the programme's own checklist item by item, upload documents in the formats requested, pay the application fee where one exists, and save the confirmation email and receipt. Keep a simple tracking sheet — programme, portal, deadline, status, login — because by the fifth application you will not remember which portal held which document.