Descartes College

Please collect the following documents before applying:

1. Cover letter - max. 300 words, addressed to the selection committee. This letter should explain why you are interested in this programme and what you hope to gain from it.

2. Essay - Write a mini-essay of max. 400 words about what studying at university means to you/your life.

3. Curriculum Vitae or any other concise document about yourself.

4. Study progress overview. We will not be looking at grades, but rather at what subjects you have completed and how your study progress is going. Please follow the instructions below to download your studyprogress overview:

• Log in to Osiris
• Go to the tab ‘Progress’
• Under ‘Options’, select ‘do not print test results’
• Click on ‘Download file’ next to the name of your degree programme

Save the above documents as a single PDF. Please adhere to the given order (cover letter - essay - CV - student progress overview).

Save this file under the name: Last name-First name (prefix)-Descartes, for example: Groot-Piet de-Descartes. Next, add the file to the registration form available on this page.

Based on your registration and the number of available places, you may receive an invitation for a matching meeting. If you receive an invitation, this will be sent to you by email after the registration deadline has passed.

If you are a student of a faculty honours programme, you can register for one of the Descartes College courses. You need to have permission from your faculty honours programme to include the Descartes course within your own honours programme. Since you already completed the admission procedure for your faculty programme, you don’t have to redo it for the Descartes College.

Enrolment for one of the subjects can be done during the regular UU enrolment periods (Block 1 and Block 3) using the ‘Apply to one course’ enrolment form above.

Start semester 1 (Course 1 & 3): Late-registration: until 20 August, 2024, 11:59 p.m.
Start semester 2 (Course 2 & 4): 4 - 22 November. Late-registration: until 21 January, 11:59 p.m.

The Descartes lectures are interesting, but what I enjoyed the most is the sense of community you find in everywhere in the programme. Because of this friendly vibe, I soon met fellow students from different disciplines. This was also encouraged by the programme staff through various activities.

As a result, I encountered differences between disciplines that I would otherwise not have noticed as quickly, but from which I learned a lot! I could then apply this knowledge to the lectures and plenary discussions. In this way all the different parts of the programme complemented each other.