Understanding your application status

What is the purpose of this page?

This page gives information about applications for the Master of Science programmes that are administered by the Institute of Computer Science. These are the Master of Science programmes in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science and Cyber Security. Note that the Mobile Robotics programme is partially taught at the Institute of Computer Science, but it is administered by another institute and has different procedures.

To understand how we (do not) communicate, please note the following: On our three Master's programmes, we formally have 13 places per year available for students from outside the European Economic Area. If some places for European students, which we must reserve by law, are not taken, we admit more students from outside Europe. For these 13 places, we get applications from about 6,000 applicants per year. 

Fortunately, this does not mean that your personal chances for admission as an international student are 1 in 500. Depending on, for example, the programme that you have applied for, the university where you have obtained your Bachelor's and the courses that you took, your chances for admission as an international student might be anywhere between 0 and almost 100%. Mid September we will put some statistics on our website that may help you in estimating your chances, in case you consider applying again in the future.

Unfortunately, with 500 applications for each spot, we cannot afford to look at applications that do not have a chance in full detail, we cannot engage in elaborate e-mail conversations about them, and we cannot offer opportunities to appeal our decisions. For these reasons, here is a guide about how to understand the status of your application.

Request and application submission status

The application portal shows you the "request status" and the "application submission" status of your application---usually they are the same.

"In preparation" means that you did not submit the application, and therefore we are not processing it.

"Withdrawn" means that you submitted your application, but then you withdrew it. Therefore, we will not process your application further and at some point we will change its status to "excluded". If this is not what you intended, you should contact us immediately, maybe it is not too late yet.

"Excluded" means that your application is not considered further. The application portal might say that this is because you did not meet all requirements, but this is not always correct. There can be several reasons for exclusion, for example:

• You submitted your application after the deadline that is applicable in your case.
• Required documents are missing.
• You did not follow the instructions about how to fill out fields that are essential for us to be able to process thousands of applications efficiently.
• You withdrew your application.
• It was decided that you are not eligible.
• We have not completely verified whether you are eligible, but if you would be eligible, you would still not have enough points to make it through the selection process.
• You got admission for another programme of ours that is higher on your priority list.

To figure out what could be the reason, you can look at the status of the building blocks (pages) of your application (see below) or you can try sending us an e-mail approximately one month before the start of the semester (that is, in September or March). Before then, we probably do not have time to answer your mail; after the start of the semester, our records on your application will be discarded.

"Received" or "In progress" mean that we have not completely verified whether you are eligible and your application is still being considered. It is a bit erratic when the "in progress" status appears. In reality there is no difference between "received" and "in progress". We use other markers to keep track of the status of each application: Some of these are also visible to you and will be explained below. So even if your application still has the status "received", we have probably started processing it already.

After the first round of admissions, it is possible that the status is still unchanged. That does not mean that your application was not considered. It only means that, before we verified your eligibility in all aspects, it became clear that you would not be ranked high enough in the selection process for the first round of admissions. If, after handling the applications from Europe, we still have some places left, we will resume processing of your application and see if we can give you admission after all.

"Valid" means that you are eligible for admission, but we do not know yet whether we can offer you one of the few places that we have available.

"Admission currently impossible" means that you are eligible for admission, but you did not make it through the selection process in the first round. If, after handling the applications from Europe, we still have some places left, we will see if we can give you admission after all.

"Declined" means that we have verified that you are eligible for admission, but one of the following happened:

• you did not make it through the selection process and there is no chance that you could make it through the selection process at a later stage anymore; 
• you got admission for another programme of ours that is higher on your priority list.

Either way, we will not consider your application further.

"Admission offered" means that you are admitted. Soon you will be able to download your admission letter from the portal (this might take a few days).

Status of individual components of your application

There may be a few more markers on your application: Each block or page of your application form might get a preliminary marker "correct" (a tick mark on a green dot) or "incorrect" (a bar on a red dot) in the top right corner.

If you see some green markers appearing, this means that we are processing your application (and everything seems to be fine so far). 

If a red marker appears, there is something wrong with that block: You do not fulfil the requirements for admission or your application cannot be processed due to a formal problem with your application. Note that your application will be excluded as soon as the first red marker appears---the other pages of your application will not be checked anymore. Therefore we cannot tell you if there are more problems that you would need to solve if you want to apply again in a later semester and improve your chances.

What is the current time line for admission to the winter semester 2026/2027?

Here is the status as of 3 September:

For the Artificial Intelligence programme: Some applications from Asia that were submitted by 15 July are still in administrative processing (we are sorry for the delays, you should hear from us very soon now). If you have submitted your application by 15 July and you are from outside Asia, you should have heard from us by now: Please contact us if this is not the case. Since we still have a few places left, application for the AI programme will open once more, from 7 September until 15 September, for "last-minute" admissions. If your application was excluded previously for missing the applicable deadline, it will now be evaluated and considered for last-minute admission; a decision on your application will be taken before the start of the semester. If your application was excluded previously for not meeting the requirements for admission, it will not be reevaluated. For more information on the conditions for last-minute admissions, please check our page with application deadlines. 

For the Computer Science and the Cyber Security programmes: The selection process is complete and we do not have any places left. If your application status still says "valid", you must have received a mail from us that explains what needs to be done next.