Document requirements for admitted students

This page covers the requirement of delivering officially certifed copies of the educational documents for conditionally admitted students and applies to both Masters and PhD students.

Is your admission offer final or conditional?

  • Check your personal admission package whether or not your admission offer is FINAL or CONDITIONAL.
  • If the admission offer is conditional, you need to fulfil the conditions by the set deadlines in order for your admission offer not to expire.
    • MSc students: If your admission offer is only conditional because you are required to pay tuition fees, please follow the instructions sent to your e-mail since the info on this page does not apply to you.

 

If your admission offer is FINAL 

 

    Admitted student must

    • submit officially certified (attested) hard copies or digital official copies* of the degree based on which you applied to the Admission Services as soon as possible but no later than the deadline listed in your admission offer. Regular copies will not be accepted.
    • If you had not graduated at the moment of applying, the last date to deliver officially certified copies is the last workday (Monday-Friday) before or on 31 July that same year at 15:00 (GMT +3).

    *More info under the section Electronic Transcript Verifcation Services.

     

      Check if country-specific document requirements concerning how to deliver the documents applies to you. There is a country-specific document requirement also for studies completed in Finland.

      If you are admitted, you need to deliver the following documents as digitally or officially certified (definition below) copies:

      1. Officially certified copy of degree certificate for the degree based on which you applied + possible official translations
      2. Official transcript of records for the degree based on which you applied + possible official translations
      3. Diploma Supplement (if available)

       

      • If the degree that you use to prove your language skills is a different degree than the degree that you used to prove your eligibility or you applied based on a double/triple degree where more than one degree certificate was issued, you have to send officially certified copies of your educational documents for both/all degrees if you are offered admission (according to the country-specific requirements).
      • Applicants who had not graduated at the time of applying: All the admissions requirements must be fulfilled. If you were exempted from taking the GMAT/GRE admission test based on your GPA, your final GPA in your degree must be sufficient. If the GPA is not clearly stated on your final educational documents, Hanken will verify that the GPA is sufficient.
        • If you gain your final degree certificate only after the deadline for delivering officially certified copies, you must at least deliver a temporary degree certificate  (read section: Degree certificate) before the set deadline .

      You can provide officially certified copies of your educational documents either via

      1. An Electronic Transcript Verification Service accepted by Hanken (recommended if available, see more info below) OR
      2. Postal Service/Drop-off at Hanken

      If you deliver your documents via Postal Service/Drop-off at Hanken, the section "What does officially certified documents mean?" and "Country-specific Document Requirements " apply to you.

      We will not send you a notification message about the arrival your educational documents. You will receive a message after we have processed your documents. All documents are processed on in order of arrival.​

       

      Sending documents by courier service 

      We strongly recommend using a courier service (e.g. DHL, UPS, TNT, FedEx) for shipments from outside the European Union (EU) instead of regular mail to avoid custom clearance. We recommend using a courier service also within the EU to be able to track your shipment.

      If you send documents from outside the EU:

      • Send the consignment of documents as a letter. Do not send it as a parcel.
      • Do not determine a value for the letter when sending it to avoid customs clearance.
        If the country of dispatch requires the consignor to determine a value for the consignment of documents, mark the value as zero (or 0.01 euros or other currency if zero is not allowed).
      • The goods description for the consignment should be, for example, documents.

       

      Delivery Address for Courier Services

      Hanken School of Economics
      Admissions Services
      Arkadiankatu 22
      00100 HELSINKI
      Finland

      Phone number: +358 (0)29 431 331 (no customer service, only for courier services)

       

      Sending documents by regular mail (not recommended from outside the EU)

      We strongly recommend using a courier service for shipments from outside the European Union instead of regular mail.

      If you send the documents by regular mail, kindly note that all documents coming from outside EU/EEA -area need to go through custom clearance. To avoid custom clearance, do not indicate any monetary value to your documents when mailing them. 

      If your documents go through customs clearance, you need to do the clearance beforehand by using this form Private person's declaration of goods imported from outside the customs and fiscal territory of the EU and deliver it via secure e-mail as described at the bottom om the form. 

      It is always the applicant’s responsibility to make sure that the application documents reach the Hanken Admissions Services before the deadline.

      Delivery Address for Regular Mail

      Hanken School of Economics
      Admission Services
      P.O. Box 479
      00101 HELSINKI
      Finland

       

      Drop-off attachments personally at Hanken in Helsinki

      You can also bring the officially certified educational documents yourself to Hankens reception, Arkadiankatu 22, Helsinki as long as the documents fulfil the country-specific requirements (see below) and the envelope is marked with the address listed above.

       

      If you deliver the officially certified documents via Postal Service/Drop-off at Hanken, the following applies:

      • Documents can be officially certified either by an
         
        • Official at the awarding institution OR 
        • Notary Public (in Finland: Digi- ja väestötietovirasto).
           

      Please also check the Country-specific requirements

      • if the country where you have conducted your degree is listed, you have to follow the country specific requirements for that country instead of the general instructions listed here.
      • If your institution's country is not on the list you have to follow these general instructions. Note that there is also country-specific requirements for degrees obtained in Finland.

       

      Officially certified documents means that:

      1. Copies are taken directly from your original educational documents
      2. Include every page of your educational documents
      3. Bear the original stamp of the awarding institution/notary public on each page of the document. The official stamps of educational institutions usually display the institution name and emblem. (e.g. a generic stamp stating only “Certified true copy” will not be accepted)
      4. Bear the original signature of the representative of the institution, their name in capital letters as well as their title.

      Other copies will not be recognised as officially certified copies. For example, a regular photocopy or a copy certified by two persons are not sufficient to constitute certification. You should never send us your original educational documents since the documents will not be returned to you.

      If your institution uses one of the Electronic Transcript Verification Services listed below, it is recommended that you share your electronically verified educational documents through that service instead of delivering them as officially certified copies via postal service as described above.

      If the service requires our contact email address, please use masters@hanken.fi (MSc students) or doctoralstudies@hanken.fi (PhD students) as the contact address.

      Please refer to your institution’s own instructions for more details on how to access the service that your institution uses.

      Please note that if your educational documents are required in a sealed envelope according to a country-specific requirement, it is acceptable to submit the documents through an electronic transcript service instead.

       

      Accepted E-verification Services

      If your institution uses a service that is not listed here, please contact masters@hanken.fi or doctoralstudies@hanken.fi, and we will investigate whether we can accept your documents through this service as well. Please note that Hanken School of Economics reserves the right to make the final decision on whether a service is accepted or not.

       

      Veri­fic­a­tion ser­vice offered by the de­gree award­ing in­sti­tu­tion

      We accept electronic educational documents that can be verified using an electronic verification service offered by the degree awarding institution if: 

      • the service is located on the degree awarding institution's website OR, in case of third party services, the institution provides a link to the service on their website
      • the entire document can be verified using the service, i.e. the verification service must show the exact same content as the document you submitted.
        • If the service verifies only parts of the document, we do not accept the document as officially certified. Instead, submit an officially certified hard copy of the document.

      Please note the following restrictions:

      • The institution’s email address is not accepted as an electronic verification service.
      • Regular PDF scans of educational documents are not accepted if the document cannot be verified using an electronic verification service on the institutions website.
      • Institutional verification services that require Hanken School of Economics to download specific software, create a user account, or pay for the verification are not accepted.

      Please also note that we cannot guarantee that we will accept verification services in languages other than English, Finnish or Swedish. If the electronic document verified by the service is not available in English, Finnish or Swedish, you must submit an official translation of the original document as well.

      Hanken School of Economics reserves the right to evaluate each electronic document and verification service case by case. If we cannot verify the required information, you must submit the document as an officially certified paper copy following the general instructions.

      f the country where you obtained your degree is listed below, you should follow the the country-specific document requirements instead of the general instructions concerning delivering officially certified copies. 

      • Australia 
      • Azerbaijan 
      • Bangladesh 
      • Belarus 
      • Cameroon 
      • Canada 
      • China 
      • Eritrea 
      • Ethiopia 
      • Finland 
      • Ghana 
      • India 
      • Indonesia 
      • Iran 
      • Ireland 
      • Japan 
      • Kazakhstan 
      • Kenya 
      • Malaysia 
      • Nepal 
      • New Zealand 
      • Nigeria 
      • Pakistan 
      • Russia 
      • South Africa 
      • South Korea 
      • Sudan 
      • Tanzania 
      • Uganda 
      • Ukraine 
      • United Kingdom 
      • United States 
      • Vietnam
        MASTERS STUDENTS: New Student Pages
        PHD STUDENTS: New Student Pages