If you fail an exam (i.e. if you receive a grade of 00 or lower), you are sometimes entitled to retake the exam. Re-exams are no longer possible for many of the master’s level courses. Some re-examinations take place 12 months after the regular examination, but most of the re-examinations take place at the end of the following semester. In some cases at the undergraduate level, a re-examination may be held as a written exam at your home university.

Please note that re-exams are only open to students who have participated in a regular exam and legitimately failed. (If a student does not show up for an exam, sitting for a re-exam is not allowed.) If you do not show up for an exam you have registered for, it will be registered as a “fail” on your transcript.

If, due to illness, you are not able to take an exam and you have documentation to prove this (required medical certificate from your doctor), you can normally participate in a makeup exam.The procedure for reporting lack of presence due to illness is as follows:

1. Call the house secretary (not the international office) the day of the exam before the exam takes place. If you cannot get hold of the course secretary by telephone, then send an e-mail before the exam.
2. Within one week of the exam, you must send the medical certificate from your doctor to the course secretary. Please be prepared for the fact that most doctors now require payment for such documentation. It is not covered by the national health insurance.
3. Finally, it is your responsibility to keep yourself informed about the date of the re-take exam and register for it. This you will have to do through the international office MORE THAN one month prior to the re-take.
4. Graduate exchange students, use re-take exams wisely! The master's programs have not allowed exams to be taken off-campus for several years. It is not automatically possible to be allowed to take the exam at the same time at your home university with a proctor. You need to apply for special dispensation for this and it is not something that is often allowed!

If, after taking an exam, you feel that the grade you received was unfair, or if for some reason you simply cannot accept the grade, you are entitled to file a complaint about the examination or the grade. The precise rules governing the filing of complaints, including the possibility to demand that the complaint be brought before a board of appeal, appear in the Ministry of Education’s order no. 80 of February 1, 1995 on the handling of examination complaints at institutions of higher learning.