I have a friend who is a Swedish born Chinese (SBC). He is a student at KTH and Stockholm University. He helps a lot of international students for years here in Sweden since he knows both Swedish and Chinese culture, languages and applying rules. Here are some important things to remember when applying for your master level program here in Sweden, from his opinion.
Choose Your Program Carefully: Choose your program carefully. This means entering university websites, reading detailed program descriptions, and making an educated choice. Just reading a name does not suffice, as your bachelor major may be listed under a completely different department at a Swedish university. PAY ATTENTION TO PREREQUISITES! Most master level programs will require specific courses taken at the bachelor level. If you do not have them, your application will be rejected for that program. Most master level programs having to do with engineering and economics WILL REQUIRE COMPUTER PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE AND CAPABILITY. You will not be taught basic programming skills in most programs. YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO KNOW IT ALREADY.
Ranking Your Schools and Programs:
You need to be very careful in ranking your selections. SOME schools for example, ONLY give scholarship consideration if you rank their school as your FIRST selection. Others are more lenient. Check with each specific school to find out what each of their terms are.
Scholarships:
Each school has different policies concerning scholarships. Some schools ONLY give scholarship consideration to those who have ranked the school FIRST in the preference list. Others are more lenient. Check with each specific school to find out what each of their terms are.
Grades and Selection:
Based on country, nationality, and merit types, you will be placed in a selection category. Students with the same or similar conditions will obviously be placed in the same selection category. Each student will receive a MERIT RATING. This is equivalent to a GPA, but more complicated. Generally speaking, the higher your merit rating, the better chance you have of getting into a program. HOWEVER, the merit rating or GPA for a particular master program or course is ONLY comparable to others in the same selection group for the SAME program or course AT THE SAME UNIVERSITY and ONLY for that particular year.
This means that you CANNOT compare the merit rating you received for one program or course against another program or course. You can ONLY compare with others in the SAME program or course as you and ONLY for that same year. You CANNOT compare with program or courses from OTHER universities or even with other program or courses at the SAME university.
Your merit rating is determined locally at the program or course level. Each university makes a local assessment from your Chinese merits. The criteria for these assessments may CHANGE from year to year and the specifics of this assessment is considered documentation that is NOT AVAILABLE TO YOU.
An Incomplete Picture:
Applying to a Swedish university means accepting the selection group and the merit point system. The numbers in your selection group is NOT the total number of students in your program or course. It is the number of students IN YOUR SELECTION GROUP. You will also not be able to find out with 100% certainty how many students are in your program or course.
Reserve: Being placed in reserve means that you meet the requirements for a program or course but that there are more people qualified for the program than there are places. Being placed in Reserve #1 IS NOT A GUARANTEE that you will be admitted. It depends there are any admitted students or enough admitted students who reject an offer. Universities usually admit more students than there are available places, because they know that there are a certain number that will say no. Only after they have gone below their quota will they start NOTIFYING students on the reserve list. Students on the reserve list will be notified after THE ORDER OF THEIR RANKING. This means that being ranked as reserve #10 is better than being ranked as reserve #50. DO NOT try and contact the university to try and circumvent this waiting list queue. You will have to WAIT your turn just like everyone else.
Notification and Selection of Results:
You will receive two selection results. One after each round. Selection results for round one will tell you if you have been admitted to any of your selections. After everyone has accepted or rejected, the selection results for round two will notify the final group of candidates. If enough students reject their nomination in round one, reserves MAY be called for round two.
Notification of Scholarship Results:
Notification of nomination of a scholarship for a course or program MAY OR MAY NOT happen at the same time as notification of first or second round admission results. They may very well come after the notification of results. This is up to EACH INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL to decide. Nomination for a scholarship may be dependent on you ranking a school as your first choice. Check with your school for specific requirements.
The Importance of Ranking:
It is of utmost importance that you rank your choices accordingly. If you are admitted for a choice higher up in your ranking, all choices BELOW that ranking will automatically be deleted. This means that if you are admitted for selection #1, YOU WILL HAVE NO WAY OF BEING ADMITTED FOR YOUR LOWER SELECTIONS. Selections 2-n will be deleted. If you want to attend a school lower down on your list of priorities, you may want to reject your first choice and HOPE that you get admitted to lower choices. You can ONLY do this if the other selections have NOT been deleted. Doing so also entails risk, as most schools, programs and courses will consider first choice applicants before second choice ones, second choice applicants before third choice ones, and so on. In other words, in rejecting your first offer, you may end up without a program or course to attend.
Replying to Your Offer:
Once the first round of selections is over you need to reply to your offer. Once you reply, a second selection run will commence that will produce a final list of candidates. You can change your reply up until the deadline for replying. After that your reply is final. Please note that SOME universities will ONLY issue scholarship notifications AFTER the SECOND notification of selection results. This is because they want to issue scholarships to the final selection of students that have been admitted.
Questions:
If you have any questions, comments, and/or suggestions, or think that any part of this post is unclear, please feel free to submit them by either replying to this post or asking the contact information below. This post is designed as a Questions and Answers on the application process for master students, so if you have any uncertainties, please feel free to ask.
Link: http://bbs.chinasky.se/ (This is a very good forum to get useful information. But unfortunately some of them are in Chinese.)
Contact:
James Huang:
Email: project.skylab@gmail.com
QQ (Chinese chat program, similar to MSN): 1194748281
QQ Group: 176895650 (This is the chatting group for the new students for 2012. There are around 100 students in this group now and for those who have questions can join this group.)
GOOD LUCK! 
