Leiden University, a public university in Leiden, the Netherlands, is one of the leading international research institutions in Europe. The university focuses on academic achievement and student success, aiming to set up every person enrolled for future professional success. Leiden achieves this goal through quality teaching and innovative research efforts.
Founded in 1575, Leiden has been around (in one form or another) for four and a half centuries. Across its seven faculties and two campuses (one in Leiden and one in The Hague), it has given thousands and thousands of students knowledge, practical skills and academic qualifications in their chosen areas of study.
There are currently 34,000 students enrolled at Leiden, and the two campus learning environments are both well designed to keep people focused, interested and comfortable as they study. There are also over 130,000 registered alumni living and working across the globe.
Over 120 nationalities are represented at Leiden, and the campus is diverse, welcoming and very friendly to students from all backgrounds. Every new person is welcomed to Leiden by their peers and their dedicated, hard-working tutors and lecturers, and teaching standards are high across all programmes and courses.
Research is a big part of Leiden’s reputation, and the main research focuses are the five areas of science. Leiden researchers (student and staff) want to make exciting discoveries, increase human knowledge and contribute positively to society.
Overall, this is a university that cares deeply about the students who are enrolled. There’s a lot of student support and career advice easily accessible, as well as some great scholarships for domestic and international students. At Leiden, it’s easy to see how much the university really cares about graduate outcomes and giving students the best possible job prospects after they leave.
Teaching Quality
The teaching quality at Leiden University isn’t just good, it’s great. Tutors are dedicated and determined to give students quality teaching 100 per cent of the time, on 100 per cent of the Leiden courses. Over the last century, the university’s teaching has been praised many times. 16 people associated with Leiden (on the staff and student sides) have won Nobel Prizes, including three recipients who were Leiden professors at the time they were awarded.
There are 6,000 faculty members at Leiden, creating a student-to-faculty ratio of just six to one. This ratio helps to maintain high-quality teaching in every session and lesson. Every student can get the attention, guidance and focus they need to succeed, and every student then has an equal opportunity to do well in their course.
Times Higher Education ranked Leiden 71st in the world in 2021. The QS World University Rankings put Leiden at number 131, still firmly in the top 150. The university’s impressive ranking status only proves how good the teaching is, and how much the students appreciate the Leiden learning experience/benefit from it after graduation.
There’s an interdisciplinary, practical approach to teaching and research at Leiden that sets up every student to be an innovative, cooperative team player. Any student who wants to start a successful professional journey can do that at Leiden, learning from the best of the best and preparing fully for their future job.
Entry Requirements
Like any other post-secondary education institution, Leiden University has a few university entry requirements that every applicant must meet to be considered for admission. Some entry requirements change between courses and levels of studies, but others stay the same. General university requirements include proof of minimum English language proficiency and education to the appropriate level.
Undergraduate applicants to Leiden will need to have achieved the equivalent of three A Levels, each with a grade of at least a C. Accepted equivalents include the IB Diploma, but a full list for all countries is available on the Leiden website. Postgraduate applicants to Leiden will need to have previous university qualifications to at least the level of a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent.
Specific entry requirements that change from one course to another are listed on each individual programme page on the website. Leiden recommends that students do their research fully before completing an application to confirm their eligibility.
English Score Required
International students who want to enrol at Leiden may need to meet a minimum standard of English language understanding. There are a few different accepted testing methods for English proficiency, including the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).
At both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study, students will need a minimum overall IELTS band score of 6.5 or a minimum overall TOEFL online score of 90. If students fail to achieve the scores they need to meet to be considered for admission, they might not be able to enrol.
Different scores can be requested by different programmes, so students are encouraged to check their chosen programme’s required English proficiency score. More information about English proficiency requirements is available on Leiden’s website.
Admission
The university admission process at Leiden is simple and easy for applicants, whether they’re domestic or international. Usually, applications are made through the Netherlands’ standard university admission/application site, Studielink. There are some easy-to-follow instructions on the Leiden website covering how to apply, and the admission team at the university are always available to answer any questions during this stage.
The student admission journey is slightly different for undergraduates and postgraduates, but many steps are the same. An applicant chooses their programme, checks they are eligible for admission to it, checks their application deadlines, and applies through the Studielink online application portal, paying a non-refundable application fee of EUR 100. They then submit a range of supporting documents:
- A passport/ID card copy
- A Dutch residence permit (if applicable)
- A CV/resume
- Academic transcripts (to the pre-university level for undergraduates, including previous university study for postgraduates)
- A portfolio (for some postgraduates)
Additional documents may be required for some programmes. All documents must be accompanied by an official translation if they’re not originally in English, French, German or Dutch. Once the application is submitted, it’s up to the university to make an admission decision. If admitted, it will then be time to enrol and start preparing for the start of the first academic semester, including paying tuition fees for this semester.
The cost of tuition can vary depending on a number of things, including the applicant’s home country, their chosen programme of study and their chosen level of study. For international students, annual tuition will be around EUR 10,500.
Scholarships & Funding
It isn’t always easy for students to cover their degree funding, especially for international students in the Netherlands who pay higher fees to study overseas. Luckily, Leiden offers a range of financial aid options and scholarships to students, domestic and international, to help reduce their tuition costs and reward academic excellence.
An example of one of Leiden’s university scholarships is the Holland Scholarship, awarded to talented and hard-working international students who are enrolled in a bachelor’s programme at Leiden. The Holland Scholarship is available to all nationalities and asks applicants to submit a letter of motivation for it along with their online university application. If applicants are successfully awarded the Scholarship, they will get a one-off payment of EUR 5,000 soon after they arrive in the Netherlands.
There’s also the Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS). This is offered to excellent students who are starting a master’s programme at the university. It’s available to non-EEA (European Economic Area) and non-EFTA (European Free Trade Association) students and is aimed at people in the top 10 per cent of their field. The three award options, given at rising levels of academic merit, are:
- A EUR 10,000 tuition fee reduction
- A EUR 15,000 tuition fee reduction
- A full tuition fee reduction down to the base cost of statutory tuition
To view more available scholarships at this university, students can visit the Leiden website. Here, they’ll also find the list of bursaries and loans offered to students facing financial difficulties. These include the Erasmus+ Master Degree Loan.
University Structure
There are seven faculties across the Leiden campus and the campus at The Hague. In these faculties are lots of different courses and subject areas. There are 45 bachelor’s programmes offered at the Leiden campus and seven offered at The Hague. 12 of these programmes are taught in English. At the master’s level, there are 78 available courses taught in English, including subjects like law, humanities, social science, archaeology, life sciences, computer science and governance. The seven faculties are:
- The Faculty of Archaeology
- The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs
- The Faculty of Humanities
- The Faculty of Law
- The Faculty of Medicine (Leiden University Medical Centre)
- The Faculty of Science
- The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
The teaching at Leiden also includes and makes space for research, building practical skills in students and encouraging them to imagine a better world. The theme of artificial intelligence is present across a lot of the university’s current research themes, which cover five broad areas:
- Fundamentals of science
- Health and wellbeing
- Languages, cultures and societies
- Law, politics and administration
- Life sciences
Leiden’s attitude to education and research is all about finding a way forward, and it continues to develop and shape students, showing them how the world is changing and how they can change the world. There are lots of different specialist research facilities at Leiden, including many lab facilities for individual subject areas and:
- The ALICE High Performance Computing Facility
- The BioMedical Metabolomics Facility Leiden
- The Cell Observatory
- The Centre for Proteomics and Metabolomics
- The Central Animal and Transgenic Facility
- The Centralized Biobanking Facility
- The Crystal Cave
- The DNAmarkerpoint
- The Human iPSC Hotel
- The Leiden Genome Technology Centre
- The Light and Electron Microscopy Facility
- The LOFAR e-Infrastructure Group
- The Metabolomics Facility
- The Microscopy Unit
- The Multi-angle DLS Facility
- The NeCEN
- The NMR Facility
- The ParaNMR Facility
- The Peptide Facility
- The Protein Facility
- The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR)
- The Viral Vector Facility
Facilities
Students are never bored on Leiden campuses. There are eating, studying and socialising spaces everywhere, and all student needs are met by modern facilities and amenities. For example, almost every building contains cafés and restaurants. There are Halal and vegetarian and vegan choices on campus to make every student feel included, and these student life centres are comfortable and welcoming, perfect for talking with peers between classes and developing new student friendships.
Any student who wants to stay active just needs to visit the student recreation centre at Leiden. The University Sports Centre (USC) has several great gyms with professional-standard equipment, as well as over 50 types of sports and group lessons from judo to boxing to tennis to Frisbee.
Academically, the university is just as well-designed. From the lecture theatre to the research centre, there are facilities that improve and encourage learning. The libraries at Leiden are each busy, well-used student activity centres for studying alone and in a group, with all the resources and printing options a Leiden student could ever want or need. There are eight in total:
- The University Library (open from 8:30 to 00:00)
- Wijnhaven Library at The Hague (open from 9:00 to 22:00)
- Walaeus Library (open from 9:00 to 21:00)
- The Law Library (open from 9:00 to 22:15)
- The Social and Behavioural Science Library (open from 9:00 to 19:00)
- The Science Library (open from 8:00 to 18:00)
- The NINO Library (open from 9:00 to 17:00)
- The African Studies Centre Library (open from 9:00 to 17:00)
Every Leiden student gets the resources they need to achieve academically and enjoy a full student life socially, trying lots of extracurriculars on campus. There’s nothing a Leiden student needs that they won’t be able to access on the Leiden campus or the campus at The Hague. Teaching and research facilities are regularly updated so they can stay modern and in line with professional standards in the working world.
Accommodation
Leiden understands how challenging it can be for new students, especially international students, to settle into life in a new area and find somewhere to live. Because of this, the university provides a lot of accommodation support to overseas applicants, helping them to find the right student apartment or student house easily.
The Leiden Housing Office is the main source of help, and it can connect students with university accommodation in Leiden and The Hague. Students can also browse their student accommodation options easily on the Leiden website, getting to know the housing types available and how the process works even before they can start actively applying for accommodation.
Students should register with local housing organisations in the area as soon as possible to give themselves the best chance of finding a good home in the Netherlands. They should combine this with requesting housing through the university rather than relying on one source of housing at a time.
Overall, life in the city of Leiden or in The Hague is very fun and highly rated by past students at the university. It’s a chance to have a real South Holland experience, enjoying all the Dutch culture and living close to friendly, welcoming locals in places where there’s never any opportunity to get bored.
Student Support
Students at Leiden can succeed and develop as people during their journey through education, helped at every stage by the university’s full student support programme of essential student support services. These student services are available for academic concerns, physical and mental health issues, financial worries and more. They make sure every student always has someone to talk to, and nobody is left behind or ignored.
Student counsellors and psychologists are available to act as student guides in one-to-one and group sessions focused on mental health. Study advisors can offer academic guidance and one-to-one consultations covering any and all of the following topic areas:
- Programme content and structure
- Study and exam arrangements
- Study planning and approach
- Graduation choices
- Internships and electives
- Studying abroad
- Thesis problems
- Possible study delays
Student support is a very important part of a good university experience, and the staff at Leiden take this support seriously. Any applicant who wants to attend a supportive school where they don’t need to feel nervous about getting help should think about studying at Leiden.
Graduate Outcomes
It’s never too early or late for a student to start thinking about their career and their professional path after graduation. Students at Leiden can use the university’s career services from the day they enrol until they are recent graduates. This is a big reason why job prospects are so strong, along with the constant focus in the classroom on practical skills as well as theoretical learning.
Of the alumni who decide to enter the job market immediately after graduating, 76 per cent manage to find employment after just two months, and 100 per cent manage to find employment after six months. This shows how much promise there is to find at Leiden, a university that delivers industry knowledge and academic knowledge.
Employment services at Leiden connect students with work-related information, queries and resources. For example, students can book an appointment with a career guide/counsellor at the Student Careers Service. In this appointment, they can talk about everything and anything; their study plan, the job market, application procedures, interview techniques and so on. There’s also a study career check that can help students make themselves as employable as possible before they enter the job market.
Plus, students can speak to experienced alumni through the mentor network once they’ve graduated. Using an online platform, they can receive personal knowledge and guidance in their field from someone who’s been through the same things as them and learned the best routes to take. Students will get a strong idea of their career options from this service and be better prepared as a helpful result.