Motivation letter for study in Europe: when it is needed

A motivation letter is not part of the standard document list for admission to a Bachelor’s or Master’s program at Polish state universities. In the University of Warsaw list of required documents for 2025/2026 it is not mentioned once: admission rests on grades, a document showing command of the language of instruction at a level no lower than B2 and, for Kazakhstani certificates and diplomas, the written information from the director of NAWA. The letter is required in other places, and it is worth knowing them before you spend a week on a text nobody will ask you for.

What Polish universities actually require

Document requirements are published on admission pages and can be checked in full. As of 12 August 2026, three verified lists contain no motivation letter.

The only mention found among the verified admission pages is at the Jagiellonian University on its second-cycle page, and it is worded as a possibility, not as a requirement for everyone. That case is covered in the next section.

The logic of these lists is the same: the university checks that the education document gives the right to apply, that it is legalized and translated, and that the candidate commands the language of instruction. The University of Warsaw requires a language document from B2 out of a list set by a minister’s regulation from foreigners who are not citizens of the EU, EFTA or the United Kingdom, and additionally the information from the director of NAWA from those whose certificate or diploma was issued in a country outside the EU, EFTA and the OECD or is not covered by an international treaty. Kazakhstan falls under these conditions.

The NAWA document itself, and when a decision of the education superintendent (kurator oświaty) takes its place, are covered separately: NAWA or the kuratorium. For a Bachelor’s diploma the logic is different, and there it matters not to confuse the NAWA information with paid nostrification: diploma recognition.

Where the letter is required in Poland after all

Three places where the letter does occur: individual second-cycle programs, postgraduate programs and doctoral schools. In all three the requirement is set by the specific program, not by the university as a whole and not by the country.

Individual Master’s programs. On its document page for the second cycle, the Jagiellonian University writes that at the application stage candidates for selected programs may be asked to upload to the system or declare that they hold additional documents, and it names a motivation letter, a letter of recommendation and a CV as examples. For the details the university sends you to the entry for the specific program in the IRK system. So the letter here is not a general rule but a property of an individual program, and the only place to learn it is that program’s entry.

Postgraduate programs (studia podyplomowe). Here the letter appears as an ordinary item on the list. At Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, on the program “Mediation in healthcare”, candidates who have passed qualification are required, within 7 calendar days of the qualification date, to submit the signed form from IRK, a copy of the Master’s diploma and a motivation letter. At Civitas University a motivation letter is required on the fields of study named in a list, and a template is issued in the candidate’s account after registration for a field of study.

Doctoral schools. In its 2026 admissions, the Doctoral School of the University of Silesia requires a motivation letter of no more than 12 thousand characters including spaces, excluding the bibliography, on a mandatory form, justifying the choice of discipline and research topic and describing research experience. The same page carries a caveat that shows well how much this is an individual program’s decision: in the discipline of mathematics the letter does not have to be prepared. The general admissions page for the doctoral schools of the Jagiellonian University does not mention the letter at all and sends all document questions directly to the chosen school.

Italy: absent from the national procedure, present at program level

The national procedure for the entry and enrollment of international students does not provide for a motivation letter. In the circular of the Ministry of Universities and Research, which applies to the 2026/2027 and 2027/2028 academic years, the word “motivation” does not appear in any form. Pre-enrollment through Universitaly is about the visa and the place, not about an essay.

At university level the picture is different, and the difference between “mandatory” and “advisable” deserves attention here. For admission to a Master’s program with a foreign qualification, Politecnico di Milano puts the Bachelor’s diploma, an academic transcript, a grade average statement, a CV and a portfolio for architecture and design programs among the mandatory documents. A language certificate there is needed not to submit the application but to receive the letter of admission, the visa and enrollment itself. The motivation letter sits in its section of optional documents, worded as documents that are advised to be added because they may improve the assessment of the application. When applying to two programs the university asks for two different letters, no more than two pages each.

It shows even more precisely on one program at the University of Bologna. On the Computer Science Engineering Master’s program, selection for the EIT track consists not of an entrance exam but of an analysis of the background, the study program and motivation through a motivation letter. For the local IES track of the same program, the committee assesses academic performance, previous experience and preparation through an online interview. One program, two tracks, different requirements.

Czechia: the letter can be the entrance exam itself

In Czechia the letter is sometimes not an attachment to the application but the first part of selection, with points and a pass mark. It has to be checked at faculty and program level: Charles University states directly that it has 17 independent faculties, each with its own application procedure, its own deadline and its own requirements, and that the university has no central admissions office.

How that looks in points can be seen on the Bachelor’s program “French Language and Literature” at Masaryk University. The entrance exam there consists of a motivation letter and an oral interview. The letter is written in French, in it the candidate explains why they want to study French language and literature, why at this university in particular and what their plans are after the Bachelor’s, and uploads the file to the electronic application. The letter is worth a maximum of 100 points, the pass mark is 50 points, and everyone who scores 50 or more is invited to the oral exam.

The practical conclusion: in a setup like this the letter cannot be finished on the last day. It decides whether you reach the second part of the exam at all.

Scholarships: the letter is required here more often than by universities

For a Kazakhstani candidate the most common place where the letter really is mandatory is a scholarship competition, not a university admissions office. The competitions differ in their requirements, down to the format.

On Banach it is worth adding a detail that explains the weight of motivation in that competition. The score is made up like this: up to 70 points for the grade average of the first-cycle diploma, up to 30 points for the justification of the educational path in the self-presentation, up to 10 points for a recommendation from a Polish diplomatic or consular mission, which is itself optional. The maximum is 110. So the justification of the choice weighs less there than grades, but it is not a formality either.

In this competition Kazakhstan belongs to group 2 of the program countries under the call of 13 April 2026, so a citizen of Kazakhstan can apply.

How to check your own case

There is no universal answer to the question “do I need a letter”, because the requirement lives at program level. A checking order that gives the answer for your case:

• Determine the level. The first cycle, a Master’s program, a postgraduate program and a doctoral school are four different document lists even inside one university.
• Open the document list on the admission page for your level and search it for the word “motivation” in the language of the page: motywacyjny for Poland, motivační for Czechia, motivazione or motivation for Italy. The absence of the word from the list is your answer.
• Open the entry for the specific program. In Poland that is the entry in the university’s IRK system, in Czechia the program page on the faculty website, in Italy the program page and the admission rules. That is where requirements appear that the general list does not have.
• Distinguish the application stage from the enrollment stage. Some documents are asked for only when you are entered on the list of students, while a motivation letter, conversely, is usually needed at the application stage, that is, earlier.
• Check the scholarship separately. A competition’s requirements are not connected to the university’s, and it has deadlines of its own. Read the text of the call, not retellings.
• Check any advice against the primary page. If an intermediary calls the letter mandatory, ask for a link to the university’s document list or to the call for the competition. How to check claims like this in general: how to choose an agency.

The timing for this is worth planning in advance, because the letter often goes in the same package as documents that take weeks on their own: admission timeline for Poland.