Transfer Poznan (PUMS) to UPJŠ Košice — Medicine

So you're at PUMS and thinking about a transfer from Poznan to UPJŠ for medicine

I'll be straight with you — I did this move myself. I'm Saif, a med student at UPJŠ Košice, and I run Medently alongside Dr. Dylan, an actual doctor. Half my team transferred into UPJŠ from somewhere else, several from Polish schools, so a transfer from Poznan to UPJŠ for medicine is not some rare edge case. It's a well-worn path, and if you're reading this from a lecture hall on Jackowskiego Street feeling like the fit isn't quite right, you're not the first.

Let me say the fair thing first: Poznan University of Medical Sciences (PUMS) is a genuinely good school. The 6-year English MD is solid, the first two years give you proper Basic Sciences — Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry — and years 3–6 are clinical. Nobody transfers because PUMS is bad. People transfer because of money, because Košice clicks better for them, because they want a fresh start, or because the numbers on the tuition invoice stopped making sense. All valid. This post is about how the move actually works — the leaving-PUMS side and the joining-UPJŠ side — with real deadlines and honest credit rules, not vibes.

Why students leave PUMS (said tactfully)

The most common reason I hear is straightforward: tuition. PUMS lists its English Medicine programme from around €16,200 per year (roughly 68,440 PLN/year in years 1–2 and 75,370 PLN/year in years 3–6). UPJŠ Košice runs about €13,000 per year for the same 6-year English MD ending in the MUDr. degree. Over six years that gap is real money — think a small car's worth, before you even factor in that Košice living costs run around €500–700 a month.

Others just want a different city and a different rhythm. Poznań is lovely; Košice is smaller, cheaper, and — I'll say it — the med student community there is tight. And some students hit a curriculum-fit wall or want out of a repeat year. Whatever your reason, keep it to yourself in the paperwork. You don't have to justify leaving. You just have to leave cleanly.

The UPJŠ destination at a glance

One card with the numbers that matter before you commit to the move.

Step 1: leaving PUMS — get your transcript and syllabi

Before UPJŠ can recognise a single credit, they need proof of what you actually studied. This is the part students underestimate, so start it early. From the PUMS study office you need:

• An official English transcript of your completed subjects — stamped and signed by the study office, showing your grades and the type of completion (exam vs credit) for each course.
• The syllabi / course descriptions for every subject you've passed — hours, content, and how it was assessed. UPJŠ compares these to their own curriculum subject by subject.

Good news for Poland specifically: Polish documents are exempt from the apostille / superlegalisation requirement for a UPJŠ transfer. That's a real headache other nationalities have to deal with, and you skip it. Order your English transcript from PUMS well before August — study offices go quiet over summer, and a late stamp can cost you the whole cycle.

Step 2: the two routes into UPJŠ — and why most people take the exam

There are technically two doors into UPJŠ:

• (a) The regular transfer request — a formal request that you be admitted directly into a given year, decided by the Dean.
• (b) The entrance exam + recognition route — you sit the normal admission exam, get accepted, then apply to have your PUMS courses recognised so you skip ahead.

Here's the honest catch, and it's a big one: you cannot apply for both a regular transfer and the entrance exam for the same programme in the same academic year. You pick one lane. In real life, most transfers ride route (b) — the exam route — because it's the safety net. If even one subject from UPJŠ's current curriculum is missing from your record, the faculty asks you to sit the exam anyway and admits you into 1st year, after which you apply for recognition and climb back up. Sitting the exam from the start means you don't get stuck at the door. I go deeper on the exam itself in this breakdown of what the UPJŠ entrance exam is really like.

The entrance exam: Biology + Chemistry, and it's held in Poland

The UPJŠ transfer/admission exam is a written multiple-choice test of Biology and Chemistry. The part that makes it painless for you: UPJŠ runs it annually in Poland — in Kraków and Warsaw — so you never have to fly to Slovakia just to sit it. As a PUMS student that's a train ride, not a border crossing. If you want to actually prep instead of stress, our UPJŠ exam flashcards and practice tool drills the exact Biology and Chemistry topics that show up.

UPJŠ transfer deadlines — write these down

Competitors bury these. I won't. This is the whole ballgame:

The signed Request for Transfer is due by 15 August. Your application for recognition of completed courses is due by 15 September of the current academic year. Then the Dean decides which courses are recognised and which year you enter, and the faculty notifies you within 30 days. After that you enrol. Miss August, and you're waiting a full year. This is why we tell PUMS students to start the transcript hunt in June.

Which year can I transfer into at UPJŠ?

The reassuring answer: usually the same or close to it. UPJŠ recognises transfers up to the 4th year, with a maximum of 180 ECTS carried over from previous study. To move straight into 2nd year you need 40 ECTS recognised — one solid year at PUMS clears that easily. Most transfers I've watched only need to make up 1–2 semesters, not a whole year.

The scenario to be aware of: if a required subject from UPJŠ's current curriculum is missing from your record, you can be admitted into 1st year via the exam and then apply for recognition of what you've done. That's the "worst case," and it's still recoverable — you're not starting from zero, you're just re-sequencing.

How credit (ECTS) recognition works — the real rules

This is where transfers succeed or faceplant, so read carefully. UPJŠ recognises a PUMS course only if it clears every one of these:

• The 10-year rule: the course must have been completed within the last 10 years from the start of the relevant academic year. Old first-year credits can time out.
• Same-level medicine faculty: it must come from another Faculty of Medicine with a programme at the same level and the same or only slightly different structure. PUMS qualifies cleanly here.
• Grade acceptance: grades A to E are accepted; F is not. If a subject was graded at PUMS, it can only be recognised as graded at UPJŠ. A subject you passed on a pass/fail basis converts to "passed – E – sufficient."
• Type-of-completion matching: exam-for-exam, credit-for-credit. A subject you finished with a credit-test cannot be recognised in place of a UPJŠ exam subject. This is the single most common trip-up.

Fees are almost a rounding error: recognition costs a fixed €20, on top of the €30 application fee. Cheap. The expensive mistakes are the mapping ones, not the money ones.

Common pitfalls (and how to dodge them)

Let me consolidate the traps that live scattered across other sites:

• Type-of-completion mismatch. If PUMS completed a subject as a credit and UPJŠ wants an exam, it won't map. Compare completion types before you assume a subject "counts."
• Subjects that don't line up 1:1. Anatomy in particular gets split or restructured between schools. Two half-modules don't always add up to one recognised subject.
• Prerequisite chains. This one bites hard: at another school, 30+ students couldn't get Internal Medicine recognised, which then blocked gynaecology and other clinical specialisations. One un-recognised core subject can stall a whole clinical year.
• The 2024 online/non-EU rule. From 2024, UPJŠ won't recognise coursework done online in countries outside the EU, Israel, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea. For an in-person PUMS student this is a non-issue, but worth knowing if you had any remote credits.

The fix for all of these is the same: a proper curriculum comparison before you submit, so there are no surprises when the Dean's decision lands. That's literally the thing we do for free.

PUMS vs UPJŠ — a like-for-like look

Both are 6-year English MDs that leave you with a recognised, EU-standard medical qualification. Here's the honest side-by-side:

	Poznan (PUMS)	UPJŠ Košice
Programme	6-year English MD, General Medicine	6-year (12-semester) English MUDr., General Medicine
Tuition/year	from ~€16,200	~€13,000
City	Poznań, Poland	Košice, Slovakia (~€500–700/mo living)
Structure	Yrs 1–2 Basic Sciences, 3–6 clinical	Pre-clinical then clinical, EU-recognised
Exam venue for transfer	—	Held in Kraków & Warsaw

If you want a broader read on the two countries beyond just the transfer mechanics, we compared studying medicine in Slovakia vs Poland in a separate piece.

What the UPJŠ degree means after graduation

You finish with the MUDr. — a full primary medical qualification, and an EU-standard one, so the degree travels well across Europe.

Thinking about the UK? That's not automatic post-Brexit, so let me be precise. UK doctors register with the GMC, and your qualification must be from an institution listed on the World Directory of Medical Schools (WFME-recognised) and cover at least 5,500 hours over a minimum of three years — which a 6-year UPJŠ MUDr. does. From outside the UK/EEA you typically reach full GMC registration via the PLAB route, now aligned with the UK Medical Licensing Assessment (UKMLA), plus an English test (IELTS Academic 7.5 overall with 7.0 in each section, or OET grade B). It's assessed case-by-case — not auto-granted — but the UPJŠ MUDr. is a fully valid starting point for it.

Your PUMS-to-UPJŠ transfer checklist

• June–July: request your stamped English transcript + course syllabi from the PUMS study office. No apostille needed.
• By 15 August: submit the signed Request for Transfer to UPJŠ (or register for the entrance exam — remember, not both).
• Exam window: sit Biology + Chemistry multiple-choice in Kraków or Warsaw.
• By 15 September: submit the recognition-of-courses application (€30 application fee + €20 recognition fee).
• Within 30 days: the Dean rules on recognised courses and your year of entry.
• Then: enrol, and you're a Košice med student.

Where Medently fits (the free part)

Medently is free — no agency fees, ever. UPJŠ Košice is one of our partner universities alongside UPOL Olomouc in Czechia and UMCH Hamburg in Germany, and because several of us actually transferred, we know where the paperwork snags. We do the curriculum comparison against the UPJŠ syllabus, flag any type-of-completion mismatches before they cost you, sort the exam logistics in Poland, and keep you on the 15 August / 15 September clock. You do the studying; we do the admin. If you'd rather read around first, our guide to medical and dental transfers to European universities covers the wider picture.

FAQ

Can I transfer from Poznan University of Medical Sciences to UPJŠ Košice for medicine?

Yes. You sit UPJŠ's Biology + Chemistry entrance exam (held in Kraków and Warsaw), submit a signed transfer request by 15 August, and apply for recognition of your PUMS courses by 15 September. The Dean then decides which credits carry over and which year you join.

Which year can I transfer into — will I drop back a year?

UPJŠ recognises transfers up to the 4th year, with a maximum of 180 ECTS carried over. You need 40 ECTS recognised to enter 2nd year, and most transfers only make up 1–2 semesters. You only risk landing in 1st year if a required current-curriculum subject is missing from your record.

How does credit recognition work, and will all my PUMS subjects count?

A course is recognised if it's under 10 years old, from a same-level medicine faculty, graded A–E (not F), and matches type of completion (exam-for-exam, credit-for-credit). Not every subject maps — anatomy restructuring and credit-vs-exam mismatches are the usual gaps. Recognition costs a fixed €20, plus a €30 application fee.

Do Polish documents need an apostille, and is the UPJŠ degree valid in the UK?

No apostille or superlegalisation is needed for Polish documents — Poland is exempt. The UPJŠ MUDr. is an EU-standard medical qualification. For the UK it's not automatic: you register with the GMC via the PLAB/UKMLA route plus an English test (IELTS 7.5 or OET grade B), assessed case-by-case.