Groningen: Numerus fixus motivation letter

Varies by program; commonly around 500-800 words

For selective (numerus fixus) bachelors that use a motivation letter, you submit a short letter explaining why you want this specific program and why you are a strong fit. The exact prompt and length vary by program, so check your program's selection page; many ask for roughly 500 to 800 words.

What it’s really asking

Why this exact program, why now, and what makes you a credible, motivated candidate the department should rank highly.

Why they ask it

Selective programs have more qualified applicants than seats. The letter lets the committee separate students who genuinely understand and want the degree from those applying widely. They are ranking you against others, so specificity and academic reasoning are what move you up the list.

Three ways in

Connect curriculum to evidence

Name two or three concrete elements of the curriculum that drew you, and explain why each connects to something you have already done or read.

Trace how the interest got serious

Tell the story of how your interest in the subject became real: a project, a class, a book, a job, or a question you could not stop thinking about.

State your direction

Say clearly what you want to do during and after the degree, so the committee sees direction, not just enthusiasm.

✕ Weak opening

“Ever since I was a child, I have been passionate about helping people and making the world a better place, which is why Groningen is my dream university.”

✓ Strong opening

“When my school's debate team kept losing on questions of international law, I started reading the UN Charter on my own. That is the gap this program fills for me.”

✦ Annotated example · Numerus fixus: BSc Psychology motivation letter. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

When I read that Groningen teaches psychology as an empirical science before it teaches it as a helping profession, I knew the program had named something I had been circling for two years. ¹I want to study how people actually behave, not how I imagine they should, and your statistics-and-methods spine is the reason I am applying here rather than to a program that treats research methods as an afterthought. My interest is not a feeling; it has a paper trail. Last year I ran a small experiment for my Extended Project: I asked forty classmates to estimate exam grades twice, once a month before results and once the morning of, and tracked how confidence drifted. ²The morning-of estimates were both more confident and less accurate, a pattern I later learned has a name. I did not know about overconfidence bias when I started; I found it because my own clumsy data forced me to. That sequence, observation first and theory second, is how I want to keep working. I am drawn specifically to your behavioural and cognitive neuroscience track and to the Heymans Institute's work on self-regulation. ³I read a summary of a study from your department on how brief implementation-intention prompts change follow-through, and I kept thinking about my own data: were my overconfident classmates simply failing to plan for the gap between intention and action? I want to be in seminars where I can ask that and then be handed the tools to test it rather than just debate it. I have prepared for the quantitative demands honestly. I took mathematics and further statistics, scored in the top band, and taught myself the basics of R over the spring because I was tired of doing chi-square tests by hand. ⁴I know the first year here is demanding and partly taught in large cohorts, and I am genuinely fine with that. I work best when a subject refuses to flatter me. Outside the classroom, I volunteer twice a month at a dementia day centre, where I have learned that behaviour is never just data; the man who repeats the same question is not a data point, he is frightened. ⁵Groningen's combination of rigorous method and a department that still asks what the numbers mean for actual people is exactly the environment I have been looking for. I am applying because I want to be trained, not just informed, and because I would rather be a careful scientist in a demanding program than a confident amateur anywhere else.

1Opens by quoting a specific, real feature of the program. This signals genuine research into THIS school, exactly what numerus fixus selectors reward over generic enthusiasm.
2Concrete evidence of behavior, with numbers. The school explicitly rewards evidence over adjectives, so a measured mini-study does more than any claim of passion.
3Names a specific track and a specific research institute. Specificity like this is the single clearest proof that fit is real and not copy-pasted across applications.
4Addresses academic readiness with verifiable specifics (subjects, self-taught skill, a real motivation). This answers the selector's underlying question: can this person survive a methods-heavy first year?
5Brings in human stakes briefly so the letter is not coldly clinical, but keeps it tied to the discipline. Balance signals maturity without drifting into a life-story narrative the school warns against.

Stuck? Start here

Which two or three specific courses, themes, or methods in this program do I actually want, and why?
What have I already done (a project, job, book, competition) that proves my interest is real, not aspirational?
What do I want to do during and after this degree, concretely enough to name?

Before you submit

Is at least three quarters of the letter about the subject and the program rather than my personality?
Have I named specific, real elements of this curriculum that a generic applicant could not?
Is every claim about my qualities backed by a concrete example or piece of evidence?

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