Academic policies and procedures
All Bachelor's and Master's programmes have established Education and Examination Regulations. Each programme has its own Education and Examination Regulations, in which the specific rules and regulations of that programme are described. There are also general Education and Examination Regulations that all programmes have to adhere to.
If you wish to deviate from the standard study programme -as established in the Education and Examination Regulations-, you must request approval from your study programme’s Board of Examiners. If you have accumulated credits before you were registered as a student at Utrecht University, you may be eligible for exemption of some parts of the standard study programme.
The Binding Study Advice (BSA) at the end of the first year of the Bachelor's degree programme indicates whether you may continue with your degree or not. It is issued by the Board of Examiners, based on the number of course credits you have obtained. It is possible to obtain 60 EC during the first year, if you keep to the prescribed pace. If you have obtained at least 45 EC by the end of the first year, you will receive a positive BSA. If you have not obtained this number of credits, your BSA will be a negative one, in which case you may not continue with the study programme.
Please note! ECs from approved exemptions do not count towards this total.
If due to illness or special circumstances you are unable to take (part of) a test, you must report this prior to the test or tutorial. Please note! Absence due to illness or special circumstances does not automatically give you the right to take (part of) a make-up test.
Final grades for courses are indicated on a scale from number 1 till 10. Grades below 5 are not rounded off, grades below 6 are rounded off to whole grades, grades above 6 are rounded off to half grades.
A 5 (or lower) is a failing grade, a 6 (or higher) is a passing grade. Read more about the rounding off final grades.
In your Study Progress Report (OSIRIS. on the tab Progress) you can check if all your achieved results have been properly recorded and are listed under the correct heading. If you find any results under 'Other' that you would like to include in your study programme, or if you have other changes to make, follow these steps:
- Go to Osiris Student > Cases > My cases > Start a new case by using the plus icon in the bottom right corner.
- A new window will open. Make sure your pop-up blocker is turned off for the new window to open.
- Choose Request Board of Examiners. Select case type Approval courses UU or SVO changes.
If you have registered for a minor but did not complete it, then deregister from that minor.
In case you are doing research that involves interviewing people, submitting questionnaires or involving people in any other way, you are probably doing human-subject related research. If so, please review the checklist provided by our Faculty Ethics Assessment Committee (FETC) and discuss it with your supervisor. The checklist contains information on privacy, ethics and data management.
Legal requirements
If you wish to conduct interviews, administer questionnaires or observe people for the purpose of research, the research must meet a number of (legal) requirements. You will need to think carefully about how you handle your participants' research data and make sure you comply with the AVG.
Your UU-grades abroad
To help foreign universities to interpret the value of our grades, UU publishes Grading Tables:
- a table for Bachelor’s courses and
- a table for Master’s courses.
The Grading Tables provide statistical distributions of grades awarded at Utrecht University. They show which percentage of all passing grades that were awarded in the three most recent academic years were (rounded-off) a 6.0, a 6.5, a 7.5, etc. The tables will be published on the International Diploma Supplement of all students who graduate after September 1st 2017.
In addition to the Grading Tables, UU also publishes a weighted average grade on the ten point scale on your International Diploma Supplement.
What do Grading Tables not show?
Grading Tables do not show whether you belong to the 10% (or any other percentage) of your class. The tables do not contain information about the average either, nor are they just about your fellow students.
The most recent Grading Tables (September 2021 – August 2024)
| Grade | Frequency |
|---|---|
| 6.0 | 18.58% |
| 6.5 | 17.38% |
| 7.0 | 20.21% |
| 7.5 | 19.17% |
| 8.0 | 13.72% |
| 8.5 | 7.10% |
| 9.0 | 2.81% |
| 9.5 | 0.81% |
| 10.0 | 0.22% |
| Grade | Frequency |
|---|---|
| 6.0 | 8.83% |
| 6.5 | 10.02% |
| 7.0 | 17.07% |
| 7.5 | 22.21% |
| 8.0 | 22.20% |
| 8.5 | 12.49% |
| 9.0 | 5.50% |
| 9.5 | 1.28% |
| 10.0 | 0.40% |
Grade Point Average substituted by Grading Tables
Until 1 September 2017, Utrecht University published a Grade Point Average (GPA) to provide help institutions abroad to interpret UU-grades. Many Anglo-Saxon universities use this four point scale to express their weighted average grade. The GPA always needs clarification. The standards according to which the GPA is calculated differ between (international) universities.
Utrecht University considers any form of academic dishonesty to be a very serious offense. Utrecht University expects each student to be familiar with and to observe the norms and values that ensure academic integrity.The most serious forms of deception that can impair this integrity are fraud and plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of fraud and is defined as the wrongful appropriation of another author’s work without proper citation. See the further elaboration on what may be considered fraud or plagiarism.
If the university discovers a case of fraud or plagiarism, then the study programme’s Board of Examiners may implement sanctions on the offender. The most serious sanction that the Board of Examiners may implement is the submission of a request for expulsion to the Executive Board.
If you feel you have not been treated properly by someone employed by Utrecht University, or if you disagree with a decision that affects you personally, you can respond in a number of ways. You can submit a complaint, an objection or an appeal.
For the full details about the various procedures and which procedure is applicable for your situation, visit Complaints, objections and appeals.
Utrecht University processes a substantial volume of personal data. In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) the university is responsible for ensuring that personal data is processed properly. Also see the Privacy Statement on the Utrecht University website.
Sets out all the rights and duties of students and the University. Download the Students' charter.