Looking for the perfect university to study consumes a lot of time. A great help is the homepage of swissuniversities. There you find useful information about the grading system in Switzerland and the requirements for admission. Swissuniversities’ interactive card of Switzerland also helps you to find your favourite uni or school in Switzerland. It offers you information on how many students there are and the respective percentage of international students. Also it says how much the semester fees are and what faculties you will find there. The basic semester fee is 800 CHF. This can increase if you choose a special subject. Also see The Report on National Student Fee and Support Systems in European Higher Education. On page 59 you will find more information on Switzerland.

Here we provide you with some basic information about Swiss universities/higher schools:

• University of Basel: is the oldest university in Switzerland.
• ETH Zurich: is the leading university in the field of natural sciences and very demanding. Find a short video on ETH Zurich.
• HSG, University of St. Gallen: is the leading university in the field of management and financing.

Official regulations
People studying in Switzerland must meet the following conditions:

• adequate financial resources in order not to be dependent on welfare benefits
• letter of confirmation from your Swiss uni or school
• health insurance with accident coverage

Organisation
Generally, Swiss universities/schools/colleges are not organised in a campus system. Different departments and faculties are sometimes spread all over the city. That means you may have to use public transport to change from one class to the next. So living on campus is not common in Switzerland, different to English-speaking countries.
As in other unis/schools in your country, 1 credit point accounts for 30 hours of workload. Here you find more information on the Bologna System in Switzerland.

Accommodation
Due to the fact that there is no real campus anywhere, accommodation spreads all over the cities too. This means finding the perfect accommodation could take some time. There are some locally useful sites and forums on how and where to find student accommodation or accommodation affordable for students. Every university/school homepage offers a section with information, just look out for rubrics like living etc. Nationwide, we recommend wgzimmer. In English you can adjust your settings on what to find in which area/city and in what price range. Further there is Housing Anywhere which offers incoming students opportunities to look for accommodation. However, in Switzerland there is only the capital, Berne, as city registered.