Waiving the right to study
What are the consequences of waiving a right to study?
Notifications of waiving the right to study are binding and irrevocable. If you waive your right to study, you can never receive it back again through applying for an extension or re-admission, for example. If at a later time you do wish to take studies again, you must apply for a new student place through the student admissions process.
If you waive a right to study towards a bachelor's degree, your right to study towards a master's degree will end also and take effect on the date of your notification of waiver is received. The waiver also terminates all other rights connected to the right to study, such as the right to any teacher pedagogical studies included in a teaching degree.
If you accept a student place (i.e. an offer of admission) but then decide to withdraw your acceptance, you must wait until your right to study begins before you can do so. Please note that the waiving of a right to study is irrevocable and it is not the way to withdraw earlier acceptance of a student place.
In what situations may I have to waive my right to study?
Waiving the right to study is required only in very rare instances nowadays. For example, a waiver is generally not needed in order to receive unemployment benefits; showing that you have interrupted your studies is usually sufficient for that purpose. Interruption of studies means that you have not completed the study units (study attainments), participated in a course with instruction given by a teacher, or completed a supervised thesis.
In practice, the only time a need to waive a right to study may occur is if, in order to receive unemployment benefits, you are unable to demonstrate that your studies have been interrupted or are unable to wait for other conditions to be met, or if you are applying for a new student place and the party organising the education requires that you waive your current right to study. For example, if you want to reapply through student admissions for the same right to study as you currently have, you must first waive your old right to study. You must waive your right to study even if you previously forfeited a right to study through negligence or if the validity expired for a previous right to study.
If you are unsure whether your situation requires that you waive a right to study, please contact studentservices@aalto.fi before submitting the notification.
How do I waive my right to study?
You can waive your right to study by submitting a PDF form to Starting Point or to studentservices@aalto.fi.
You can waive only one right to study per form.
If you are waiving more than one, use a separate form for each.
Once the form has been sent, you can no longer cancel your waiver notification. The date the notification is received is the date the right to study will end.
When your waiver has been processed, you will receive a confirmation of it at the email address you provided on the form.
Sending by email
Send the form as a confidential email (see below) and include your personal details and a picture of your proof of identity. We prefer that you send it in PDF format, and please send the picture of your ID as a separate attachment (not as part of the PDF file).
- Email the form to confidential-startingpoint@aalto.fi. We recommend that you send it from your aalto.fi email address, if you still have it available. To send a confidential email, add .s onto the end of the recipient’s address.