Binding Study Advice system (BSA)

• At least 45 ECTS by the end of the first year (20 part-time).
  • Exception for students at University College Groningen and University College Fryslân Global Responsibility and Leadership: 60 EC.
• a negative BSA is valid for a period of 2 years (starting 1 September of the subsequent academic year).

• a negative BSA for a certain degree programme may also apply to a cluster of related degree programmes.

The first year of a Bachelor’s programme is known as the ‘propaedeutic phase’. Traditionally, the first year functions as a phase for orientation and referral, and the Binding Study Advice system reinforces these functions. The University aims to encourage you to prioritize your studies – studying and performing should come first, while other activities, like student life, part-time jobs and sports, even though they are important as well, need to take a lower priority.

The introduction of the Binding Study Advice system will enable the University to refer students, who turn out to be unsuitable for a certain degree programme, to another programme in which they will be more likely to succeed. You may simply have made the wrong choice of degree programme or you might be unable to keep up with the level of the programme. In such cases everyone, both the University and you, will be better off with an early change in degree programme, either at our university or at a university of applied sciences.

Bachelor students at the University of Groningen will receive a Binding Study Advice (BSA; always negative) if they earn fewer than 45 ECTS credit points (20 for part-time studies) by the end of their first year of study. Students who do not meet this requirement will have to leave their degree programme. To help you, the University will provide good supervision of first-year students, for example by means of an extensive mentor-tutor system, in order to ensure that you know exactly how you are progressing.

Exception
Students at the University College Fryslân Global Responsibility and Leadership and the University College Groningen will receive a Binding Study Advice (BSA; always negative) if they earn fewer than 60 ECTS credit points by the end of their first year of study.

A negative BSA for a certain degree programme may also apply to a cluster of related degree programmes. At the University of Groningen, the Faculties of Economics and Business, Science and Engineering, and Law have clustered certain degree programmes, please contact the study advisor for more information.