Student Guide

Applying for an extension to a right to study on Sisu

You can use Sisu to apply for an extension to your right to study. In addition to making an application, you need to have a personal study plan (or create one immediately) and schedule the courses you still need to complete.

Starting January 1, 2025, a processing fee must be paid with the extension application. The application will not be processed until the fee has been paid. The processing fee is based on Government Decree 199/2024.

If your study period ends on December 31, 2024, and you submit your extension application in SISU by that date, the fee does not apply to you. Extension application in Sisu is unavailable January 1 - 10, 2025. If you need to apply for extension for Spring 2025 during that period, please contact Learning Services.

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Application for extension to the right to study

Applications, instructions and guidelines

Applying for an extension – a quick guide

Sisu’s frontpage will notify you if your right to study will expire at the end of your current academic term.
If you are unable to graduate by that date, apply for an extension to your right to study.
Update your primary study or create a study plan if you do not have one yet. In a two-phase degree (bachelor's + master's); if both phases are incomplete, create study plan for both.
Schedule the courses you still need to complete. This is mandatory in order to apply for extension. In a two-phase degree (bachelor's + master's); if both phases are incomplete, schedule the studies for both phases.
Fill in the extension application and submit it.
If you want to update your study plan or do not need an extension after all, you can cancel your application.
Submit the required attachments outside Sisu as instructed.
- Use the following email subject line: ‘[Your school: ARTS, BIZ, CHEM, ELEC, ENG or SCI], [your name], attachment to application for extension’
You will receive a message on Sisu as soon as your application is approved or rejected.

In what situation are extension applications not made on Sisu? When is it impossible to apply for an extension?

Generally, if your Aalto username still works and can log in to Sisu, you should use it to apply for an extension.

Do not use Sisu to submit an extension application in the following cases:

Your Aalto username has expired and you cannot log in to Sisu.
- In this case, you need to apply for an extension outside Sisu: Find your programme page and click Contact Information
- In this case, you must make a study plan, schedule the courses you need to complete, and apply for an extension outside Sisu.
Your right to study has already expired AND your education path has been personalised.
- Apply for an extension outside Sisu:[email protected]
- Create a personal study plan on Sisu. Although its status will be ‘Selections against the rules’, the administrative staff will use it when processing your application.
- Go to the ‘My profile’ page and the ‘Study rights’ tab to see whether your study path has been personalised.

You cannot apply for an extension at all if:

The status of your right to study is
- Cancelled
- Renounced
- Graduated
You are transferring to another educational institution.
You have completed all your studies.

If your right to study will expire at the end of the ongoing academic term, Sisu’s frontpage will display a notification and a link to an extension application. If you click on the link, the system will guide you to make:

A personal study plan
A schedule for your studies
An application for extension

You should not use Sisu to send in any other documents related to your application. Send them to the university outside Sisu.

Note: You cannot apply for an extension to your right to study if the status of all parts of your degree is ‘Parts completed’. In this case, you should apply for graduation.

If your right to study is going to expire within the ongoing term, Sisu’s front page will display the following notification: ‘If you are unable to graduate before your study right expires, you must apply for an extension.Also make sure you have time to have your graduation processed.’

Note: If you are going to graduate in July or December, you do not need to apply for an extension, even if your study right will expire on 31 July or 31 December.

How you should apply for an extension depends on the degree programme for which you have a study right. If you are pursuing both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and you have not yet completed your bachelor’s degree, you should apply for an extension for both degrees.
If you have several rights to study that are about to expire, Sisu will display a notification for each of them.
To go to the extension application, click on the button ‘Apply for an extension’ below the notification.

If your right to study has expired, Sisu’s front page will no longer display a notification. You can still apply for an extension through the ‘Study rights’ tab in the ‘My profile’ section.

To log in to Sisu for the application process, your Aalto user account still has to be valid.

You may have lost your right to study because it has expired (in other words, the maximum duration of your studies has elapsed) and you have not applied for or been granted an extension. In this case, you only need to apply for an extension to your study right.

You do not need to apply for the reinstatement of your study right or pay a re-enrolment fee.

Alternatively, you may have lost your right to study because you failed to enrol as an attending or non-attending student and the maximum duration of your studies has elapsed. (The terms for which you fail to enrol as attending or non-attending will count against the time you have left to complete your studies.) In this case, you need to apply for an extension to your right to study.

You do not need to submit a separate application for the reinstatement of your right to study. Instead, Aalto will consider the reinstatement when processing your extension application. If Aalto grants you an extension, your right to study will automatically be reinstated at the same time. You will need to pay a re-registration fee. The administrative staff of your programme will give you more detailed instructions.

Please note: if you fail to enrol as an attending or non-attending student for an academic term, the term still counts towards the maximum duration of your studies.

You can only enrol as a non-attending student for a certain amount of terms before this starts to affect the time you have left to complete your degree. The number of terms you may spend as a non-attending student depends on the reason for your non-attendance and the year when your right to study entered into force. Further information about the way the permissible duration of studies is defined.
If you study on extended time, you may not enrol as non-attending.

Applying for an extension through ‘My profile’

Creating a personal study plan

To apply for an extension to your right to study, you do not need to create a new study plan. You can simply update your existing plan. The status of your study plan should be ‘Selections done’.

If this is not the case, Sisu will first ask you to complete your study plan.
As soon as the status of your study plan is ‘Selections done’, navigate back to the notification box on the frontpage to make an application.
- You can make an application for an extension even if your study plan includes study modules that require separate approval. However, you should apply for separate approval for these modules at the same time as you apply for an extension. Detailed instructions on applying for approval and study module statuses are available here.

If your study plan contains one or several study drafts, they must comply with the rules of the study plan:

A study draft can only be included in a study module whose rules permit it.
The study module must be conditionally approved.

If necessary, use the Free edit mode to apply for approval.

Scheduling your studies

If you have not scheduled your courses by adding them to your timeline, Sisu will ask you to do so.

Schedule your upcoming courses for the ongoing teaching period or future terms.
- Example: If you are applying for an extension during Period II in December, you cannot schedule any courses for Period I in the past autumn.
If your degree has a two-cycle structure (bachelor+master) and you have not yet completed either degree, you need to add the courses you plan to include in each degree to your timeline.
- You can schedule studies four terms/two academic years into the future, this is the maximum extension that you can apply for at a time.
You also have to add your study drafts to your timeline.
How to schedule your studies?

If a course you took in a past period is still missing the completion mark (a garland icon) in your study plan, Sisu displays the following notification: ‘There are courses in your plan that you have not completed and that are timed in the past on the timeline. Please correct the timing.’ If you want to submit your extension application immediately, do one of the following:

Edit the timing of the course: either make it extend to the ongoing period or postpone it. This will enable you to submit your extension application. After the course has been registered as completed, the correct period will also be displayed.
Wait until the course has been registered as completed and then apply for an extension.

Extension application

After you have put your study plan in order and scheduled your studies, it is time to make the actual application for an extension to your right to study.

The upper part of the application displays the details of your study right, the terms you have spent as an attending or non-attending student, your statutory absences, any past failures to enrol as a student, the credits you have earned so far, the credits you still need to earn, and the average number of credits you have earned per term.

The ‘Spent terms’ section lists the academic terms included in your right to study that you have already used. The section also indicates whether you were enrolled as an attending or non-attending student for each term and the number of credits you completed.

In the ‘Planned studies’ section, you can see your timeline in the form of a list. You can click on each term to see the courses you have scheduled for it. The sum total of the planned and missing credits is displayed at the bottom. The timing of your study drafts is also displayed, if you have any.

You can apply for an extension of a maximum of four terms (two academic years) at a time. Your application also needs to explain the reasons why your studies have been delayed and include a plan on how you are going to finish them.

Then select the way you wish to be informed when your application is approved or rejected.

After you submit your application, any updates you make to your study plan and/or timeline will not be reflected in your application. If you need to edit your application, cancel it and send a new application that contains the necessary edits.

You can find the application in ‘My profile’, under the tab ‘Applications and requests’.

Note:

A cancelled application cannot be reactivated for processing.
You cannot make a new application until your previous application has been either processed or cancelled.

Lisäajan pituus — Length of the extension

The location and cancellation of the application

Submitting appendices

Send the necessary attachments to Aalto University using channels other than Sisu.

How to send us health information (for example medical certificates) or other sensitive information in an encrypted email:

If the attachments contain sensitive information, use your aalto.fi email address to send them to school specific confidential email.

School-specific Student Service's e-mails when sending a secure message:

School of Arts, Design and Architecture: [email protected]
School of Business: [email protected]
School of Chemical Engineering: [email protected]
School of Electrical Engineering: [email protected]
School of Engineering: [email protected]
School of Science: [email protected]

If the attachments contain sensitive information, use your aalto.fi email address to send them

Only use this method to send secure email!
Note: Use the following email subject line: ‘ [your name], attachment to application for extension’

If you are using an email address other than your aalto.fi address, do this: First, sign in to the portal at https://securemail.aalto.fi. Then follow the instructions in the portal to send your attachments.

Other attachments should be sent to [email protected].

Note: Use the following email subject line: ‘[Your school: ARTS, BIZ, CHEM, ELEC, ENG, SCI], [your name], attachment to application for extension’

If you want to submit attachments as printed versions, bring or send the documents to the learning services of your programme:Find your programme page and click Contact Information