EPFL Master Excellence Fellowship 2027 (Switzerland) — CHF 10,000 per Semester for Master's Study

EPFL Master Excellence Fellowship 2027: a CHF 40,000 award hidden inside the admission form

The most important thing to know about this fellowship is that it has no application of its own. There is no scholarship portal, no separate essay and no second deadline. If you apply to an EPFL master's programme and fail to tick one box on the admission form, you cannot be considered at all, however strong your record is.

WHAT IT COVERS

The fellowship is worth CHF 10,000 per semester for up to four semesters, so a maximum of CHF 40,000 across a two-year master's. External candidates also receive a reservation of a room in a student residence, which removes one of the more stressful parts of moving to Switzerland. It is not a full ride, and EPFL is direct about that: the fellowship is a substantial financial award, not full funding, and recipients remain responsible for tuition fees, rent and other living costs. Read it as a large merit award that makes Lausanne realistically affordable, rather than as a package that covers everything.

WHO CAN APPLY

Anyone applying to an eligible EPFL master's programme can be considered, and there is no nationality restriction. External candidates — those whose bachelor's degree comes from an institution other than EPFL — apply through the standard online master's application. You may apply to only one master's programme per academic year, you must not already hold a master's degree, and you must not be a student already enrolled in an EPFL master's programme seeking funding only for the second year.

Self-check questions:

- Have I chosen one EPFL programme, and does my bachelor's degree genuinely satisfy its admission requirements? - Can I demonstrate outstanding academic performance against other applicants in my faculty, not against a fixed threshold? - Do I have something beyond grades — research output, patents, entrepreneurship or sustained civic engagement — that distinguishes my file? - Can I fund tuition and living costs if the fellowship does not cover them? - Can I meet the renewal bar next year: 50 ECTS and an average of 5.0 out of 6?

HOW TO APPLY

Choose your programme, review its admission requirements, prepare the admission documents, and complete the online EPFL master's application through IS-Academia. In the relevant section, tick the box indicating that you want your profile considered for the Excellence Fellowship. External candidates need no additional documents beyond the admission file; extra material such as TOEFL or GRE results may be submitted but is not compulsory and does not influence the fellowship evaluation.

Materials checklist:

- Complete EPFL master's application, submitted in the first round - Bachelor's degree certificate and full transcripts - Programme-specific documents listed on your programme's page - The Excellence Fellowship box ticked and the fellowship section completed - Any optional supporting evidence of research, entrepreneurship or civic activity

COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID

Not ticking the box is the first and most common, and it is unrecoverable because the award is assessed during admission rather than afterwards. Applying late in a later round is the second: applications submitted after the first-round deadline are still considered for admission, but they are not eligible for the fellowship. Applying to more than one programme is the third. Postponing your admission after being awarded the fellowship is the fourth, because a deferral forfeits the award.

DEADLINE

15 December 2026 is the first-round deadline for external candidates applying through IS-Academia. A second round closes on 31 March 2027, but fellowship eligibility attaches to the first round. Internal EPFL candidates continuing in the same field submit directly to their section by 31 January 2027.

TIPS TO WIN

Treat the fellowship section as seriously as the rest of the file, because the committee weighs research output, prizes, patent applications, start-ups and societal commitments alongside grades. Give the reviewers evidence rather than adjectives: name a publication, a competition, an organisation you built. And apply in the first round, since the timing of your application decides whether you are in the competition at all.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU SUBMIT

EPFL pre-selects candidates by section and then the Excellence Fellowships Committee makes the final decision. Decisions for the first round go out around the beginning of April 2027, and for the second round in early to mid-June. If you are selected you must confirm your intention to attend by the deadline given in the Registrar's Office email, because a fellowship is lost if admission is postponed. Payment for the second year is conditional on clearing two bars at the end of your first master's year: at least 50 credits and an overall weighted average of 5.0 out of 6, with no exceptions stated for language courses, admission courses or courses outside the study plan.

More scholarships for international students

https://www.oeacnetwork.com/scholarships

Related awards on this site

https://www.oeacnetwork.com/index.php?page=post&id=14

https://www.oeacnetwork.com/index.php?page=post&id=13

Official page

https://www.epfl.ch/education/master/master-excellence-fellowships/

Not sure whether your file is strong enough for this programme? Talk to an OEAC advisor — our team helps students from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and across the region prepare competitive scholarship applications, and the first consultation is free.

Last updated: 10 October 2026 Photo: Guilhem Vellut — CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), via Wikimedia Commons