Mostly postgraduate, which means older students, shorter stays and a lot of competition for the same flats each September.
The tightest market in the country. A vacancy rate near a third of one percent means agencies can pick, and an international student with no Swiss file is rarely the one they pick. Students who succeed here almost always start in a flatshare and move later.
Apply to Cité Universitaire the day you are admitted — the list runs 5 to 9 months, so it rarely helps for your first semester, but it costs nothing and it helps for your second. Everything else means the private market.
File your residence permit dossier about three months before you arrive; processing runs eight to twelve weeks and nothing downstream starts until it is in. Register at your commune within fourteen days of landing, and sort health insurance within three months. The full timeline.
Campus is at Maison de la Paix. Choose your neighbourhood by commute rather than by postcode — a cheaper room forty minutes away costs you two hours a day for a year.
Most Graduate Institute applicants get stuck on the same thing: an agency that wants someone resident in Switzerland to co-sign. We do that, for 3 months' rent — after we have read your file, and we do decline some.