Motivation Letter for Master's: 3 Annotated Samples
Three constructed motivation letters for European master's programmes, written to ETH, Sciences Po and Chalmers rules and annotated sentence by sentence.
Motivation Letter for Master's: 3 Annotated Samples
Below are three complete motivation letters for European master's programmes: electrical engineering at ETH Zurich (about one A4 page), international affairs at Sciences Po (typed online, within 1,000 words) and environmental engineering at Chalmers (one page). All three are constructed examples, written by us, not real applicant statements, and each is annotated sentence by sentence against the questions that university publishes.
Our view: a sample helps only if you can see which sentence answers which of the programme's questions. A letter written to no question list teaches you to write to no question list. So each sample here is built on a real, quoted set of instructions, and the annotation shows the match. Copy the method, not the sentences.
Every university page quoted below was checked on 31 October 2026. When your own letter is drafted, you can test it against the one-page European motivation letter rubric.
Contents
- How to use a sample without copying it
- Sample 1: electrical engineering at ETH Zurich, one A4 page
- Sample 2: international affairs at Sciences Po, typed online
- Sample 3: environmental engineering at Chalmers, one page
- What changes by field
How to use a sample without copying it
Four universities publish rules about who writes the letter and who can read it. They are information, not a reason to avoid samples, and they set the line between learning from a letter and reusing one.
- TU Delft says: "All applicants should submit their application for admission by themselves. We advise against the use of external agencies that offer this service." (TU Delft application procedure)
- Sciences Po says: "Your motivation letter must demonstrate authenticity and sincerity." (Sciences Po motivation letter)
- Chalmers warns that a letter of motivation can be read by evaluators at every university in Sweden (Chalmers master's application).
- The University of Amsterdam asks Data Science applicants for "A self-written motivation letter in English (max. 500 words)." (UvA Data Science)
The practical rule: take the structure and the level of detail from a sample, and take every fact from your own record. A sentence lifted from a published sample answers someone else's application. In Sweden, a letter you upload can be read by evaluators at every university in the national system.
Sample 1: electrical engineering at ETH Zurich, one A4 page
The instructions. ETH's Electrical Engineering and Information Technology MSc page asks for a motivation letter of "Approximately one A4 page in the language of instruction of the chosen programme, stating your motivation for choosing this specific Master's degree programme at ETH Zurich." The same page says "Students must choose a specialisation" and that "Your choice of a specialisation should match the content of your curriculum (study programme) so far." The language of instruction is English. The deadline for international bachelor's holders is Monday 30 November 2026 at 11:59AM CET (ETH dates).
Constructed sample 1: ETH Zurich letter
Constructed example, written by us, not a real applicant statement. Context (invented): Kwame Mensah holds a BSc in electrical and electronic engineering from a university in Ghana and has worked for one year at a regional electricity distributor. Square brackets mark the details he must copy from ETH's own pages.
Kwame Mensah · MSc Electrical Engineering and Information Technology · 31 October 2026
Dear Admissions Committee,
I am applying to the MSc in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at ETH Zurich to specialise in [specialisation named on the programme page], because the control problems I met at work need more power electronics and control theory than my bachelor's gave me.
My bachelor's thesis was a grid-tied inverter controller for a 3 kW rooftop solar system. I designed the current-control loop, simulated it, and tested it on a scaled 300 W prototype in our lab. The prototype held its output current within 4% of the reference under step changes in irradiance, but it oscillated when the grid voltage dipped. I could describe that oscillation; I could not model it. That gap is the reason for this application.
Since graduating I have worked for a year at a regional electricity distributor, where I analyse fault records from feeders with high rooftop-solar connection. In three of the eleven fault events I reviewed, inverters disconnected during a voltage dip and made recovery harder. My report on those events is now used by the planning team to set connection limits for new solar installations on two feeders.
My coursework matches the specialisation I am choosing. I took two semesters of control systems, one of power electronics and one of electrical machines, with my highest grades in the two control courses. My weakest preparation is in advanced mathematics: I have taken linear algebra and differential equations, but not functional analysis, and I expect the first semester to demand more mathematics than I have practised.
I am choosing ETH because [courses named on the programme page] cover the converter modelling and grid-interaction problems that my thesis and my fault reports ended on, and because the programme lets me take them inside one specialisation rather than as scattered electives.
After the MSc I intend to return to distribution-network planning, as an engineer who can test whether an inverter will stay connected through a fault before it is installed, rather than explaining afterwards why it did not.
Yours sincerely, Kwame Mensah
The letter body is 332 words, which fits on one A4 page in a readable layout with the header and the signature.
| Sentence or passage | What it answers | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| "I am applying to the MSc … to specialise in [specialisation] …" | ETH's one instruction: motivation for "this specific Master's degree programme" | Names the programme and the specialisation in the first sentence |
| The inverter thesis and "I could not model it" | Motivation, from evidence | One project, his role, one measured result and the exact limit he hit |
| The fault records and the report used by planners | Motivation, from work | A checkable outcome: his report is in use on two feeders |
| "My coursework matches the specialisation I am choosing" | "Your choice of a specialisation should match the content of your curriculum" | Names four courses by content and states one honest gap |
| "I am choosing ETH because [courses] …" | "at ETH Zurich" | The reason is the programme's content, copied from its page, not reputation |
| The last paragraph | Where the motivation leads | A specific job he can name, tied back to the thesis |
What we left out on purpose: a childhood interest in electricity, a list of every course, and a paragraph on Switzerland. None answers ETH's question. The ETH Zurich motivation letter guide covers what else fits on the page.
Sample 2: international affairs at Sciences Po, typed online
The instructions. Sciences Po asks you to write the letter "directly online, in the space provided in the application form", "within the limit of 1000 words" (FAQ). The motivation letter page lists four things the letter "should enable us to clearly assess": "Your background and personal journey", "Your academic interests and understanding of the programme", "The alignment between the programme and your professional goals" and "Your contribution to the programme and community". It also says "Applicants are expected to demonstrate that they have thoroughly researched the programme". The 2027 closing date is 21 February 2027, 11.59pm Paris time (deadlines).
Because the text is typed into a form, the sample has no header, no bold and no bullet points. It follows the four areas in Sciences Po's order.
Constructed sample 2: Sciences Po letter
Constructed example, written by us, not a real applicant statement. Context (invented): Lucía Herrera has a BA in political science and has worked for two years at a city-level non-profit that runs a help desk for displaced families. She applies to the Master in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at Sciences Po's Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA), a two-year programme taught in English; the square brackets mark what she must copy from the programme page.
For two years I have answered the same question in a help-desk office: which agency is responsible for this family? I work for a non-profit that registers displaced families arriving in my city and refers them to housing, health and legal aid. I have registered more than 600 families, and I now train the four new volunteers who join each semester. The question I cannot answer at the desk is why the responsibility moves between the city, the national agency and international organisations every time a policy changes. That question, and not a general interest in world affairs, is why I am applying to the Master in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at Sciences Po.
My background explains the angle I bring. I studied political science at a public university, where my thesis compared how two neighbouring municipalities recorded arrivals of displaced people between 2019 and 2023. I found that the two offices counted the same families differently, and that the difference changed which services each city could claim funding for. The thesis taught me to read administrative data as a political choice. My work since then has shown me what that choice costs a family waiting for a referral.
I have read the programme's curriculum with that question in mind. Three parts of it are the reason I am applying here rather than to a general master's in political science. The first is [core course named on the programme page], because it treats international organisations as institutions with mandates that can be compared, which is the analysis I could not do in my thesis. The second is the Enhanced Master option, whose additional courses can focus on migration, because it would let me study displacement as a policy field rather than as a humanitarian event. The third is the programme's [applied project or capstone named on the programme page], because it would make me produce work for an actual client, which is how I already learn best. I have prepared for the reading the programme will demand by reading the annual reports of the agencies my office works with, in English, for the past year.
My professional goal is specific. I want to work on the coordination between national agencies and international organisations in displacement responses, first as an analyst in an international organisation's country office, and later in the unit that designs how responsibility is handed between agencies. The programme fits that goal because it would give me the comparative and legal tools that my practical experience lacks, and a professional network outside my own country. I do not expect the degree to make me an expert on every region. I expect it to let me explain, with evidence, why one handover between agencies works and another fails.
I would contribute two things to the programme and to the community. The first is a view from the very end of the policy chain. Many of my future classmates will study decisions made in capitals; I have spent two years watching those decisions arrive at a desk, and I can bring cases from that desk to seminar discussions. The second is practice in explaining complicated rules to people under stress, which I do every day in two languages. In group work I would be the person who asks what a recommendation means for the family at the front of the queue. Outside class, I would like to join or help start a student group that works with local organisations supporting displaced people in Paris, so that what I learn in the programme is tested against practice while I am studying.
I am applying to Sciences Po because this programme connects the question I bring from the help desk to the institutions that decide its answer.
The letter is 626 words, well inside the 1,000-word limit. Sciences Po sets a maximum, not a target, and every paragraph above answers one assessed area.
| Passage | Sciences Po's assessed area | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| The help-desk question in the first paragraph | "Your background and personal journey" | A concrete scene, a number (600 families) and the question it raised |
| The thesis on two municipalities | Background, "directly connected to your project" | Academic evidence that leads to the same question |
| Three named parts of the curriculum | "Your academic interests and understanding of the programme" | Shows she "thoroughly researched the programme" without copying its brochure |
| The career paragraph | "The alignment between the programme and your professional goals" | Two steps, both specific, and a limit on what she expects |
| The last full paragraph | "Your contribution to the programme and community" | Two contributions, each grounded in her work, plus one plan outside class |
For a US-style international relations statement, which has different rules, see the international relations statement of purpose sample.
Sample 3: environmental engineering at Chalmers, one page
The instructions. Chalmers lists three cases that require a letter of motivation: "A scholarship that is administred by Chalmers" (the page's spelling), programmes with a portfolio requirement, and Learning and Leadership. The letter "must be in English and must not exceed 1 page". It should cover why you chose the programme and Chalmers, how your current studies, interests and skills connect to it, what you hope to gain, your career and its impact on society, and, if you wish, a thesis proposal, with a brief autobiographic section (Chalmers master's application). The Chalmers motivation letter guide quotes the full list and explains who must send one.
Constructed sample 3: Chalmers letter
Constructed example, written by us, not a real applicant statement. Context (invented): Meera Iyer has a BTech in environmental engineering from a university in India and applies to Chalmers' Industrial Ecology, MSc and to a Chalmers-administered scholarship, which is why her letter is required.
Letter of motivation: Industrial Ecology, MSc, Chalmers University of Technology Meera Iyer · 31 October 2026
Dear Admissions Committee,
I grew up in an industrial town and studied environmental engineering because I wanted to measure what the factories around me were releasing. My bachelor's taught me how to measure. It did not teach me how to decide which of several cleaner options is actually better across its whole life, and that is why I am applying to Industrial Ecology at Chalmers.
In my final year I built a network of eight low-cost particulate sensors around a bus depot with my municipality's health department, and I calibrated them against the city's reference monitor for three months. Our data showed that the depot's diesel buses were the largest local source of fine particles at the school next door. The council's response was to propose electric buses, and I was asked whether that was better. I could compare tailpipe emissions. I could not compare battery production, electricity supply and end-of-life, which is what a fair answer needed.
That question connects my studies to this programme. My coursework in environmental chemistry, statistics and air-quality modelling gives me the measurement side. [Courses named on the programme page] would give me the life-cycle and systems methods I lack. My strength is field data that I can defend; I expect the hardest part of the programme to be the economic and systems modelling, which I have only met in one elective.
At Chalmers I hope to learn to run a full life-cycle comparison and to explain its assumptions to a public client. For my thesis, I would like to compare diesel and electric bus fleets for a mid-sized city in a hot climate, including the electricity mix and battery replacement, using measured local air-quality data as one input.
After the master's I intend to work as an environmental analyst for a city or a public-transport authority in India. The impact I want is simple to state: when a city replaces a polluting system, it should choose the replacement on evidence that includes the whole life cycle, not only the part that is easiest to measure.
Yours sincerely, Meera Iyer
The letter body is 339 words, so it fits on one page with the header.
| Passage | Chalmers' instruction | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| The opening paragraph | "The autobiographic section can be fairly brief"; why this programme and Chalmers | Two sentences of background, then the reason, in the first paragraph |
| The sensor network and the bus question | "the connection between your current studies and your choice of programme" | One project, her role, a result and the question it left open |
| The coursework paragraph | "how your interests and skills can contribute to your success" | Names the skills she has and the one she lacks |
| The life-cycle goal and the thesis sentence | "what you hope to gain at Chalmers"; "You may also outline a thesis proposal" | A thesis idea that grows from her own data |
| The last paragraph | "your future career and the impact it may have on the society" | A named job and a concrete public impact |
The environmental science master's statement guide covers the US version of this letter, which asks different questions.
What changes by field
The method is the same in every field: answer the programme's questions with your own evidence. What counts as evidence changes.
| Field | What the letter has to show | A published rule that shapes it |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering | Courses by content, a project with your role and a measured result, a specialisation that fits your curriculum | ETH: "Your choice of a specialisation should match the content of your curriculum"; TU Eindhoven asks for course descriptions with "5 to 10 key topics or learning objectives for each relevant course" (TU/e) |
| International affairs and social science | A question, the method you would use on it, and proof you know the programme | Sciences Po: "Applicants are expected to demonstrate that they have thoroughly researched the programme" |
| Environment and public health | A setting, the data you worked with, and the public effect you want | Chalmers asks about "the impact it may have on the society where you will practice your profession" |
| Economics | Quantitative preparation, stated plainly; the letter cannot replace a test score | KU Leuven's Master of Economics: "For the GRE a minimum score of 162 on quantitative reasoning is required", with exemptions for some degrees (KU Leuven) |
The economics row is the warning. Where a programme sets a hard requirement, such as KU Leuven's GRE minimum or GMAT alternative, no paragraph in the letter can make up for missing it. Meet the requirement first, then write the letter. Engineering readers who want more paragraph-level examples can use the engineering SOP examples by discipline; for computer science and data science, see the computer science motivation letter guide for Europe.
The countercase: if your programme publishes no question list, none of these three letters maps directly onto it. Use Sample 1's shape, which is built on ETH's single instruction: why this programme, what prepared you, what you lack, what you will do afterwards.
Questions about motivation letter samples
Can I use one of these samples as a template?
Use the structure, not the text. Each sample is built on one university's question list, and the facts belong to an invented applicant. Your letter needs your record and your programme's questions.
How long should a master's motivation letter be?
As long as your programme says. These samples run from 332 words (ETH, about one A4 page) to 626 words (Sciences Po, maximum 1,000). The motivation letter length guide lists the published limits at 22 European universities.
Should a motivation letter have a header?
An uploaded letter should have a short one: your name, the programme and the date. A letter typed into a form, like Sciences Po's, needs none. The one-page A4 format guide covers headers, language and file rules.
Is a motivation letter the same as a statement of purpose?
Often the same document under another name: Uppsala lists "letter of intent, motivation letter, or personal letter" as other names for its statement of purpose. What matters is the programme's own question list, whatever it calls the document. For the first and last sentences on their own, see twelve constructed opening and closing lines.
For the paragraph each sample spends most care on, see the why this programme paragraph guide.
For the paragraph about your thesis, the bachelor thesis summary for a motivation letter shows a constructed 176-word version with workload.
Get a free review of your motivation letter
Get a free Quick Review of your motivation letter against GradPilot's one-page European motivation letter rubric. It reads whether the letter names its programme and your reason for choosing it, answers what that programme asked for, ties your preparation to the programme's demands, and fits the space it is given. For a longer letter like the Sciences Po sample, use the master's motivation letter and personal statement rubric.
More guides for European master's letters:
- Motivation letter format: one A4 page: header, paragraph order and language rules.
- Same motivation letter for several universities?: what to keep and what to rewrite.
- UK and European motivation letters: which document your programme is asking for.
- Graduate school essay guides: every master's and PhD guide by destination.
Sources
Retrieved 31 October 2026, except where noted.
- ETH Zurich, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology MSc application: one A4 page; specialisation must match the curriculum. ETH Zurich, Application dates, autumn semester 2027: 30 November 2026, 11:59AM CET.
- Sciences Po, Graduate admissions: motivation letter: the four assessed areas; research the programme; authenticity. Sciences Po, FAQ: online, 1,000 words. Sciences Po, Deadlines: 21 February 2027. Sciences Po PSIA, Master in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action: two-year master's in English; Enhanced Master option with courses that can focus on migration.
- Chalmers, Apply for master's programmes: when the letter is required; one page; the list of contents; visibility across Swedish universities. Chalmers, Industrial Ecology, MSc: programme name.
- TU Delft, Application procedure, MSc international diploma: applicants apply themselves; external agencies.
- University of Amsterdam, Information Studies: Data Science, international prior education: self-written letter, 500 words.
- TU Eindhoven, Documents for admission (no year printed): course descriptions.
- KU Leuven, Master of Economics admission requirements, 2027–2028: GRE quantitative minimum of 162; GMAT alternative; exemptions.
- Uppsala University, Supporting documents: other names for the statement of purpose.
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