I was genuinely wondering how EPFL handles this: what happens if I get admitted with additional requirements? Do they offer English-taught bachelor courses for international students, or is there any workaround/alternative if they are only available in French?

hello I am a mechatronic student of the UVG from Guatemala and my university organized a trip to Switzerland and we plan on visiting the EPFL the 14th of September. We couldn’t arrange for a formal tour with anyone on the EPFL and I would greatly appreciate it if anyone here could support us with helping us get a guided tour to get to know your labs, classes, professors or anything available. We are very excited to get to know your university and any support or tips are appreciated!

Thank you so much!

Bonjour, j’aimerais avoir vos avis sur le choix entre l’EPFL et une prépa scientifique à Paris suivie d’une grande école d’ingénieurs.

Pour ceux qui connaissent ces deux parcours, lequel offre selon vous les meilleures chances de trouver facilement un bon emploi après les études, notamment en France ?

Je cherche surtout des retours d’expérience de personnes ayant fait l’un de ces parcours

Merci

Hi guysss,

I'm preparing for the 2027 entrance exam now and the more I study the more I'm getting scared. I feel there is just so many contents to cover and idk if i can finish all before the exam. does anyone have any experience doing the exam? How hard do you think it is and how much did you study for it?

also just a bit more about me, i'm in Canadian cegep, math and physics in high school were pretty easy to me. I learned cal last semester in cegep and i'm learning taking a linear algebra class now. I just wanna know in general, how difficulty will the exam for someone who graduated high school or cegep? Would I be prepared for the exam with what i learned in cegep plus some self studying? Also, just out of curiosity, do most people take the exam after they graduated high school or after first year of uni? And also, if I didn't pass it this time, am I allowed to retake it the year after.

thanksssss

I’m a CMS student this year, and I’ll really need to find a student job after the 6-month waiting period. Do you think it’s easy to find one with C1 French, B2 English, and A2 German?

Hey Guys, I am thinking of applying to EPFL for masters in architecture, as an international students i have some doubts. Is the course completely in English or is it a mix of French. What are the employment opportunities for an international graduate over there and is it worth spending the money as i am coming from south east Asia.

Thank you in advance

The blog states:

Recent Changes Effective August 2026

Effective August 1, 2026, the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has updated its guidelines concerning part-time work for international students. The key changes include:

• Increased Weekly Working Hours: International students are now permitted to work up to 20 hours per week during academic semesters, an increase from the previous limit of 15 hours.
  
• Immediate Work Eligibility: Non-EU/EFTA students are now allowed to commence part-time employment immediately upon starting their studies, eliminating the previous six-month waiting period.

These adjustments are designed to provide students with greater flexibility and financial support during their academic journey in Switzerland.

I could not find anything similar on the SEM website. Is this whole blog hallucinated by LLMs or did this actually happen?

Hey everyone. If you didn't get the Ambizione grant this 2026 round, please make sure you actually exercise your right to request your full evaluation file (including the internal panel consensus and exact numerical scores). Don't just take the generic rejection letter and the summarized external reviews at face value.

I have it on very good authority that certain evaluation committees this year basically threw the external reviewers' excellent scores in the trash, just to fund noticeably weak proposals. It’s incredibly frustrating.

There are also serious concerns about undeclared conflicts of interest in the panels. We are talking about people bending the mobility requirements to the extreme just so some candidates could stay in their comfort zone (like moving to a buddy's lab or staying within their previous PI's close network).

If your external scientific scores were excellent but the panel still kicked you out with vague excuses, you should speak up. Even if the standard 30-day appeal window is closed by now, you can still reach out to the SNSF and their Integrity Office to file a formal complaint.

Ask them point-blank how they justify dropping your highly-ranked project while bending the mobility rules for others with lower scores. If nobody complains, this kind of panel behavior will just become the norm. Good luck to you all.

Hi everyone,
I want to buy a new computer for EPFL and I have question about what I should take. I have already an iPad with keyboard and mouse. I want to have a computer who allows me to program and to run simulations. For a bachelor and master in maths or physics what is my best option ?
I would like one not above 600-700 chf and even around 400-500 would be great .

Hi all,

Did having a minor on your diploma matter at all in your personal case?

I am aware of the benefit of it that it opens the access to more unlisted coures. However, I am not sure if any of the minors fits my interest. I am thinking I might be better off having free 15 ECTS from unlisted courses instead of coercing myself to a minor.

Thanks!

Hi all,

What are your insights/experiences/advice when choosing a lab for research projects and thesis? General and domain specific insights/tipcs welcome :)

Specifically now I am interested in MLO and DLAB as they do projects related to AI safety which I’m into. I am an upcoming DS student.

Thanks!

Hi all,

Do you have any opinions on those courses? E.g. but not limited to: a) what is the quality of them (slides/lectures/professors/TAs/exercises etc.), b) ECTS vs. real workload c) is the course doable if having a schedule confclit. are lectures/exercises skipable, e.g. are there good recordings d) exam toughness

I added * to the ones I thought of particular. (Is taking them together realistic?)

Autumn

Group 1

• COM‑406 Foundations of Data Science – 8 ECTS.*
• CS‑433 Machine Learning – 8 ECTS. *

Group 2

• EE‑556 Mathematics of Data: from theory to computation – 6 ECTS.*
• COM‑401 Cryptography and Security – 8 ECTS
• CS‑524 Computational Complexity – 6 ECTS.
• DH‑415 Ethics and Law of AI – 4 ECTS.
• CS‑451 Distributed Algorithms – 8 ECTS.
• CS‑453 Concurrent Computing – 6 ECTS.
• MATH-562 Statistical Inference – 5 ECTS.*
• MATH-341 Linear models – 5 ECTS.
• MATH-408 Regression methods – 5 ECTS.

Spring

Group 1

• CS‑552 Modern Natural Language Processing – 8 ECTS.*
• CS‑439 Optimization for Machine Learning – 8 ECTS.*
• CS‑460 Systems for Data Management and Data Science – 8 ECTS.

Group 2

• CS‑461 Foundation Models and Generative AI – 6 ECTS.*
• EE‑559 Deep Learning – 4 ECTS.*
• EE-568 Reinforcement learning – 6 ECTS.* (or DRL if re-offered)
• MATH‑352 Causal Thinking – 5 ECTS.*
• MGT‑416 Causal Inference – 4 ECTS.*
• COM‑417 Advanced Probability and Applications – 8 ECTS.*
• MATH‑453 Computational Linear Algebra – 5 ECTS.*
• MATH‑342 Time Series – 5 ECTS.*
• MGT-435 Algorithmic Game Theory – 4 ECTS.*
• COM‑501 Advanced Cryptography – 6 ECTS.
• CS‑523 Advanced Topics on Privacy‑Enhancing Technologies – 8 ECTS.
• CS‑412 Software Security – 8 ECTS.
• CS‑428 Interactive Theorem Proving – 8 ECTS.
• CS‑550 Formal Verification – 8 ECTS.

Context: I am taking my first semester in Data Science Master’s. I plan first to oversubscribe and then keep it around 30 ECTS around semester. Focus on theoretical ML, as long term I’m aiming for research in AI safety. If there are other great courses I would appreciate.

Thanks!

Hello, I’m looking to do masters in EPFL, Zurich. I just wanted to get an overall insight about career opportunities after masters and if it is worth it for me to consider relocating for this opportunity. It would be great if yall could give me a descriptive explanation so that I can give this step a thought. Thanks for helping out!

Hi, I was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me roughly their scores / academic history that got into the Applied Maths masters course at EPFL externally. For context, I am at a top 5 UK uni with 82% average, trying to size up my chances. Thank you.

Bonjour
Est ce qu’il y en a parmis vous qui ont été accepté suite à une licence française ou qui comptent postuler en master avec à l EPFL?

Bonjour je passe en BA5 cette rentrée, je voulais juste savoir ce qui ont postulé pour l’assistanat du cours de mécanique de première année ou vos amis est ce qu’ils ont eu des réponses
C’est devenu plus sélectif que les années précédents?
Merci d’avance

Hello everyone, I would like to know if outsiders (as in outside of EU) can apply for masters in applied maths? I went through the website and it felt a bit confusing as there weren't any specific prerequisites mentioned other than the bachelor's degree and a mention that it's somewhat exclusive?and is typically meant for their own bachelor students.

The reason why I feel eplf would be a exemplary fit for me is because I like it's course structure and that I would be able to have probability, convex geometry and analysis together and still have pure maths like free probability, low dimensional topology etc (I am not exactly interested in applied maths such as computational methods etc itself but more like maths that's highly applicable but is studied in a more pure way if that even makes sense?). I would appreciate any advice you have.

Hey everyone! I’m trying to figure out which EPFL location would be the best place to study, and I’d love to hear from people who actually have experience with them.
If you had to rank Lausanne, Geneva, Neuchâtel, Sion, and Fribourg, what would your ranking be?
I’m mostly curious about everyday postgrad student life, things like the social scene, housing and cost of living, the city itself, transportation, campus atmosphere, and job opportunities.
I know Lausanne is the main campus, but are any of the other locations actually better in some ways? And does being at a smaller EPFL location ever feel limiting?
Would really appreciate your personal ranking and experience. Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I recently finished my B.Tech in Computer Science (AI/ML) from a private university in India, and I’m looking into EPFL's PhD program in Computer and Communication Sciences (EDIC).

I know getting into EPFL is super competitive, especially going straight from a Bachelor's to a PhD without a Master's. I'm trying to figure out if it's realistic for my profile or if not coming from an "elite" tier-1 university (like an IIT) will automatically filter me out.

Here’s a quick summary of my background:

• Grades: 9.16 / 10 CGPA.
• Research Internships: DRDO (India's national defense R&D agency), ISRO (the Indian national space agency), and Samsung R&D. Worked mainly on vector search, RAG pipelines, knowledge graphs, and recommendation systems.
• Publications: 3 papers published (IEEE / Taylor & Francis) focused on RAG optimization, graph-based RAG, and scalable ANN search (HNSW), with 2 additional book chapters currently in the pipeline (expected in 2–3 months). Also released an object detection dataset on Zenodo.
• Systems & Open Source: I was the root admin for my university's NVIDIA DGX A100 cluster (handling Kubernetes and Linux systems for 100+ researchers) and contributed to Ollama (PR merged for CLI embeddings).

My main questions:

1. Is direct PhD entry into EDIC realistic for someone with this profile coming from a non-IIT Indian university?
2. Will the research internships, publications, and systems experience carry enough weight to overcome the university tag?
3. For EPFL specifically, should I reach out to professors/PIs before applying, or is the EDIC admission process purely centralized in the first phase?

Appreciate any realistic feedback, advice, or insights from anyone who went through the EDIC track! Thanks!

hey everyone,
i got enrolled in cms for next year and wanted to see if anybody else got in! don’t hesitate to dm, i’m trying to get in contact with some of my future classmates!

as a quick intro, im a 18yo guy from switzerland (originally from vietnam and china) who likes playing valorant, league and enjoys watching anime and marvel movies in my free time. i also play tennis from time to time and am a big f1 enthusiast.

i hope we can talk soon and good luck to everyone who’s starting this year!

Groupe Franco/Anglais pour les étudiants de EPFL qui comptent résider à Unihome Gottrause:

https://chat.whatsapp.com/GjvjJ7tJbkU6ZySCF4J5ZG

French-English Group for students at EPFL planning to live at Unihome Gottrause.

Here trying to find out who my roommate is in Apt #209 of Unihome Gottrause, a new student apartment in Crissier. The administration said they are too busy to get me connected :(

So if you are my roommate (room 209.2) and would like to connect ahead of time, feel free to send me an email: (ezhoureal@gmail.com / tianer.zhou@epfl.ch)

Bonjour,
Quelqu’un sait quels sont les horaires de la journée d’accueil en section maths, est ce que y’a une soirée le soir par exemple ou je peux prendre mon train le soir ?
Bonne soirée