Argentina attracts international students who want to earn a university degree in Spanish. Buenos Aires alone offers degrees ranging from medicine and engineering to business, law, psychology and the humanities.
Getting there takes preparation. You need to understand how your degree works, meet the university’s admission and Spanish requirements, prepare your academic documents and arrange your immigration status. The details depend on the university and degree, so start with the degree you want and plan backward from there.
1. Choose your degree first
Start with the subject you want to study. Your choice of degree decides which universities you need to look at and what preparation you need.
If you want to study medicine, for example, look at the requirements and structure of specific medical programs, such as UBA’s Carrera de Medicina at its Faculty of Medicine. A general search for “how to get into a university in Argentina” won’t help much, because there is no single national admission process.
Make a shortlist of the degrees you are considering before you make any other arrangements.
2. Choose the university
Next, compare the universities that offer your degree. In Buenos Aires, the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) is the largest public option. Private universities such as Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE), Universidad de Palermo (UP) and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT) have their own academic structures and admission procedures.
Applying to UBA works differently from applying to a private university. Each institution publishes its own requirements, deadlines and registration instructions, so read the information for your specific faculty and degree, not only the general admissions page.
Cost is another factor. Public universities are free or very low-cost, even for international students. Private universities usually charge between USD 300 and 1,500 per month.
3. Check the Spanish requirement
Spanish matters twice: for admission, and for keeping up with your studies.
UBA has the clearest rule. Since December 2023, applicants whose secondary-school diploma comes from a non-Spanish-speaking country must prove C1 Spanish, for example with the SIELE exam. If you start at beginner or intermediate level and want to study at UBA, C1 is your target. B2 is an important milestone, but your preparation continues after it.
Other universities set their own requirements. Check them directly before you plan your Spanish course.
4. Prepare for academic Spanish
A language certificate gets you admitted. To follow a degree in Spanish, you need more.
Imagine starting psychology and being handed a 30-page academic text in your first week, or following a technical engineering lecture and writing your exam answers in Spanish.
During your Spanish course, practice reading long texts, taking notes from lectures, building an argument, writing structured assignments and learning academic vocabulary. This matters most for demanding programs such as medicine, law or engineering, where specialized terminology appears from the first semester.
5. Find out which documents you need
For an undergraduate degree, your secondary-school diploma and transcripts are the key documents. A diploma issued abroad may need an apostille or legalization, depending on the country, and documents that are not in Spanish usually need an official translation.
Check your university’s instructions before you order translations or send anything. And start early: replacing a lost diploma or getting an apostille in your home country often takes longer than expected.
6. Understand the admission procedure
UBA has its own registration procedure, and private universities such as UADE or Universidad de Palermo run their own admission systems. Make a checklist for your degree:
- university and faculty
- degree program
- academic qualifications
- Spanish requirement and certificate
- documents, legalization and translations
- registration procedure and deadlines
- immigration requirements
Once you have filled it in, you know exactly what to do next.
7. Plan around the university calendar
Your intended start date determines everything before it. Suppose you want to start in March. If you still need to improve your Spanish, get documents from abroad and pass a language exam, all three have to be done before the registration period, and they rarely follow the same timetable.
Work backward from your start date:
University start date → registration deadline → document deadline → Spanish certificate → language preparation
The earlier you set up this timeline, the sooner you spot problems. If you miss the March start, check whether your university has a mid-year intake: UBA, for example, also admits students for the second semester.
8. Plan the immigration side early
University admission and immigration status are two separate processes. What you need depends on your nationality, the length of your stay and your personal circumstances.
Include immigration in your plans from the start. Some documents from your home country may be needed both by the university and by the immigration authorities, again with apostille or translation. Immigration rules change, so always check the current requirements with the Argentine authorities before you travel.
9. Get to know Buenos Aires before your degree starts
In Buenos Aires you will rent an apartment, use public transport, open accounts and deal with university administration, all in Spanish. If you study Spanish here before university, you learn to handle these things during your preparation period. When classes begin, the city and its Spanish are already familiar.
10. Allow enough time
How much preparation you need depends on where you start. Take two students who both want to study at UBA.
Student A already speaks Spanish at a solid B2 level and has all their documents ready. They mainly need to reach C1 and get used to academic Spanish.
Student B is a beginner and still has to obtain their secondary-school documents from abroad. Their preparation takes longer, because they have two projects to complete: learning the language and getting the documents.
So there is no standard answer to “How many months of Spanish do I need?” Ask yourself three questions instead: What Spanish level do I have now? What does my university require? When do I want to start? Once you can answer them, you can build a realistic plan.
Preparing for university in Argentina
For international students, the application is one part of a larger move: a new academic system, a new language of study and a new country. Academia Buenos Aires’ University Pathway Program [link] brings these together. You study intensive Spanish in Buenos Aires and receive guidance on choosing a university and degree, language requirements, admission procedures, documents, SIELE preparation and the transition to academic life in Argentina.
You choose the university. We help you arrive prepared.
Read more: Study at a University in Argentina [link] · Why study at a university in Argentina? [link]