Can somebody get into Norway/Germany/Finland universities with 2.8-3 GPA?

[nebraska]

Back in the day I was searching for prospective universities to apply for in Canada. While the general requirement for application was minimum 2.5 GPA on scale of 4.    Though I expect to get around 2.9 , sort of . But these days I was searching about universities of Germany / Norway and Finland and now what I come to know is that in these countries grading system of ETCS is used with 1 being best while 5 being the worst grade. The requirement for application to be considered is grade C which is equivalent to 2.0 in ETCS while it is 3 GPA on scale of 4.              So in other words can a person with GPA lower than 3 expects to get into any German, Finnish or Norwegian university.   Has anybody got accepted. Why Canada can accept student with low gpa but not European universities.  

[nugget]

Even though it might say a GPA of 2.5 is needed for master's programs in Canada, in my experience you usually you need a higher GPA than the minimum requirements to receive an offer of admission. This is because schools tend to receive many more applications than positions available. However, if you have outstanding experience and references, a low GPA may by overlooked by an admissions committee depending on the program and how competitive it is to get in.

 

In my experience, the programs with the best job prospects after graduation tend to be the most competitive to get into in Canada. ex: medicine, law, clinical psychology, etc. I imagine the same would be true in other countries.

Edited August 1, 2013 by jenste

[MissMoneyJenny]

Canadian universities are very stringent with their GPA requirements when it comes to applying to grad school. Through my applications I felt as though they didn't even bother looking at the rest of my application because my GPA was not what they wanted. Even in a not very competitive program.

 

UK and European universities tend to be a bit more forgiving, looking at the whole package rather than just the GPA. If you're a well rounded application you'll stand a chance of getting in. I firmly believe my very passionate Statement of Purpose was what got me my acceptance in the UK.

[geitost]

I do not know where you got your information from, but in Germany grade C is a 3.0, and that is (in most cases) not a very good prerequisite if you want to get into a master's program. Of course the situation will vary across programs and subjects, but there are many master's programs with an official or an unofficial cut-off grade. In addition, it is not yet completely common in Germany for master's application requirements to include a statement of purpose. Again, this depends on the subject or university, but there are many programs that admit students almost exclusively based on GPA/grades.

 

I cannot say much on the situation in Norway, although I got the impression that statements of purpose, non-academic experience and extracurricular activities play a more important role in the admissions process there than in Germany. I looked into programs at the University of Oslo myself and found that they had very clear and very specific requirements in terms of prior coursework at the same time. Norway is a wonderful country but has the unfortunate drawback of being a very, very expensive place to live. Depending on your financial situation, this is something you may want to bear in mind, especially if your GPA is not very likely to qualify you for a scholarship.

 

All in all, my advice would be to look into programs at universities that would interest you, carefully review their requirements and maybe get in touch with the professor in charge of the program if any questions remain. Viel Glück / lykke til!