Admissions for International Students
WHY Study at KCUA?
・ We are the oldest arts university in Japan with over 130 years of teaching excellence.
・ A high percentage of our graduates have gone on to become world renowned artists and musicians.
・The high ratio number of full and part-time teaching faculty are leaders in their own professional fields.
・The high ratio of teaching faculty to students enables us to provide a personal and intense education experience.
・The rich cultural traditions of the City of Kyoto and a unique sense for the avant-garde creates the perfect environment to study the arts.
Admissions for International Students
We welcome students from across the world to study with us at KCUA. Our international students come from Asian, European, and North American countries, and their unique cultures and experience help to enrich the environment of the university. The Graduate School of Kyoto City University of Arts accepts applications from international students in the following course and degrees:
Programs for International Students
There are three kinds of programs designed for international students who wish to study at Kyoto City University of Arts and its Graduate School.
Exchange Programs
Kyoto City University of Arts and its affiliated universities reciprocally accept students based on bilateral agreements.
The Faculties of Fine Arts and Music as well as Graduate School courses each offer exchange programs in partnership with 17 universities and institutions based overseas. (As of April 2019)
If you are students of our partner institutions and whish to study at Kyoto City University of Arts, please find the Application Guideline and Application Form below.
Application guideline for Faculty of Fine Arts
Application guideline for Faculty of Music
Non-degree Research Students
This non-degree program is for international students to audit classes at our university.
Please refer to the following websites for further details:
Graduate School of Arts Application Guidelines for Non-degree Research Students
Graduate School of Music Application Guidelines for Non-degree Research Students
International Students Enrolling in Kyoto City University of Arts
Undergraduate Courses
Kyoto City University of Arts does not have special examinations designed for international applicants who wish to apply to undergraduate courses at our university. While international students are eligible to apply to our undergraduate courses, they are required to take the National Center Test for University Admission (Japanese standardized test) and other technical skill tests designated by each faculty. All examinations are conducted in Japanese.
Please refer to the following application guidelines for further details (Japanese only):
Faculty of Fine Arts Application Guidelines
Faculty of Music Application Guidelines
Graduate School (Master’s Course)
International applicants who wish to apply to the Graduate School (Master’s Course) of the university can take either of the following paths:
(1) Special Admission for International Students
– This is that students first enroll in the Graduate School as non-degree research students and after a six-month enrollment period, they become eligible to take the entrance examination for master’s programs.
– This enrollment system adopted for only the Graduate School of Music (Master’s Course), and whole the entrance examination subjects are the same for both international and Japanese applicants.
– Students for the Graduate School of Music (Master’s Course) are selected from the non-degree research students.
– All examinations are conducted in Japanese.
(2)General Admission
International applicants may take the same entrance examination for master’s courses as Japanese applicants.
– All examinations are conducted in Japanese.
– As students for Graduate School (Master’s Course) are selected from all applicants including Japanese ones, international applicants are required to demonstrate a high level of Japanese language proficiency.
– Please refer to the following application guidelines for further details (Japanese only):
Graduate School of Arts Application Guidelines
Graduate School of Music Application Guidelines
* The Eligibility requirements of the Graduate School of Arts (Master’s Course) will be revised and applies from 2021.
For the admission for the Graduate School of Arts (Master’s Course), oversea applicants who are non-native Japanese speaker must have JLPT N2 or N1 and submit “JLPY Certificate of Result and Scores” in addition to other requires application documents. Please refer to the following webpage for other admission requirements.
https://www.kcua.ac.jp/admission/arts-gr/ (Japanese Only)
Graduate School (Doctoral Course)
International applicants who are eligible to apply to our doctoral programs are exempted from taking a language examination as part of academic examinations. (Applicants are required to make prior, additional arrangements to be exempted.) With the exception of the language test, the entrance examination subjects are the same for both international and Japanese applicants.
Please refer to the following application guidelines for further details (Japanese only):