Erasmus Motivation Letter Example

Who actually reads this one

Not a professor. In most cases your Erasmus letter is read by the departmental exchange coordinator, who has forty of them, a fixed number of places at each partner university, and a spreadsheet.

Their job is to allocate places so that the fewest students come back with credit transfer problems. So the letter that wins a competitive place is the one that makes the coordinator confident you have already worked out your study plan and will not become a problem in February.

The example is from Léa Dubois, a French third year law student applying for a spring semester at a Finnish university, with three applicants for two places.

Name one university and defend it

Applications that list three choices with a paragraph of general praise for each lose to applications that make a case for one.

Léa's opening states the partner university, the semester, and the reason in a single sentence: she is specialising in maritime and environmental law, and the host faculty runs a spring cluster on Arctic and Baltic marine governance that has no equivalent in her home faculty.

She then gives the course codes. Three of them, with ECTS values, and a note that all three are taught in English. That last detail matters more than students expect, because a coordinator's recurring nightmare is the student who arrives and discovers two thirds of the timetable is in Finnish.

What to take from it: find the actual course catalogue of the host university, pick three courses, and put the codes in the letter. It takes an hour and almost nobody does it.

Show the credit transfer already works

Léa's second paragraph maps each chosen course onto a requirement in her home degree. Two count towards her elective block, and one she proposes as a substitution for a compulsory module, noting that she has already emailed the module convenor and attaching the reply.

This is the paragraph that gets her the place. It converts her from a risk into an easy yes.

What to take from it: work out the learning agreement before you write the letter, not after you are selected. Say which requirement each course satisfies.

Language, practicalities, and honesty about them

She confirms her English level with a certificate and a grade rather than describing it as fluent. She notes she has no Finnish and has enrolled in the host university's beginner survival course, which runs in the first two weeks.

She also mentions she has checked accommodation deadlines and that the student housing application opens in November. Trivial, but it signals someone who reads administrative emails, and coordinators notice.

Say why now, in one paragraph

The weakest Erasmus letters are the ones that could have been written by any student in any year. Léa explains that the spring semester is the only window in her programme where an exchange does not collide with her mandatory professional placement, and that her thesis topic on port emissions regulation is the reason she wants the Baltic focus rather than any generic international experience.

That ties the timing, the destination and her own work into one argument.

What not to write

• "I want to experience a new culture and meet people from all over the world." Every letter in the pile contains this sentence.
• A paragraph about how the exchange will make you more open minded. Assume it is true and say something else.
• Travel plans. The coordinator is allocating study places, not holidays.
• Three ranked choices with identical reasoning. If you must rank, make the reasoning different for each.

Length and format

400 to 550 words is plenty. This is the shortest letter of the four types in this hub, because the substance sits in the learning agreement and the coordinator knows it.

Write it in the language the call specifies. If the call does not specify, write it in the language of instruction at the host university if you can do so well, and in your own if you cannot. A clumsy letter in Finnish is worse than a clean one in English.

Before you send it

Check that every course code in the letter still exists in the current catalogue. Catalogues change yearly, and a code that was retired two years ago tells the coordinator you copied an older student's letter.