Application & Admission
Note: The department will not make any predictions on the outcome of potential future applications. Only officially submitted applications and documents are taken into account by the admission committee. Application documents and related information sent via email will not be reviewed or considered.
Excellent students holding a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Bioinformatics, Biology, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Biomedicine and other disciplines with a strong theoretical-mathematical background are welcome to apply. A minimum background in biology, computer science and mathematics is mandatory for all students.
The admission committee may issue additional requirement courses to students whose bachelor’s degree curriculum does not fulfil all admission criteria. Additional requirement courses need to be taken in addition to the regular master’s degree programme.
Eligible students holding a degree issued by a university need to have passed introductory courses in the following fields of study: programming, data structures and algorithms, statistics, biology and bioinformatics. Additional requirements may not exceed 30 ECTS credits (a full semester of studies).
Eligible students holding a degree from a university of applied sciences (Fachhochschule) must have achieved a GPA of at least 5 on the Swiss grading scale or demonstrate a comparable performance and will receive additional requirements between 40 and 60 ECTS credits.
This Master's degree programme is offered in cooperation with the University of Basel and the University of Zurich. Applications are handled by ETH Zürich.
For further details on the profile of requirements, please consult the CBB master's degree programme regulation. The academic, language and performance prerequisites for and further details regarding admission to the Joint Master’s degree rogramme in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics are set out in the appendix of the Study Programme Regulations, available in English:
DownloadAppendix Requirement profile CBB MSc (PDF, 222 KB)
Additional Requirements
Additional requirements courses issued upon admission need to be taken in addition to the regular master's degree programme. Credits received in this category do not count towards the regular master's degree programme. Depending on the number of assigned additional requirement courses, the overall study duration might be extended.
Below, please find a list of the most common additional requirement courses at ETH Zürich for admission to the CBB master's degree programme. Please note that the content of these courses is decisive and courses may be replaced with courses of other Universities with the same content. However, passing these courses prior to admission is no guarantee for acceptance to the program.
- 252-0856-AAL Computer Science I
- 252-0002-AAL Data Structures and Algorithms
- 227-0945-11L Cell and Molecular Biology for Engineers
- 406-0603-AAL Stochastics (Probability and Statistics)