University and College Admissions - Germany

Germany

In Germany prospective students who have passed the Abitur may decide freely what subjects to enroll in. Recently, however, in some of the most popular and most desired subject fields students have to pass a certain numerus clausus — that is, they cannot enroll unless they have scored a minimum grade point average on their Abitur.

One should distinguish two types of higher education institutions in Germany, the universities (including Technische Hochschulen) and the Fachhochschulen (polytechnics). A prospective students who has passed the Abitur is qualified for admission to every German university, with the exception of very few new degree programs, where additional entrance examinations were recently introduced. A Fachhochschule, in contrast, often requires from the student the completing of an internship to qualify for admission.

There is also a second German school leaving exam, which qualifies the prospective students for admission to higher education in Germany, the Fachhochschulreife, often called Fachabitur in colloquial usage. An internship is already part of the Fachhochschulreife itself, therefore a Fachhochschule requires no additional internship from the student. However, most universities do not accept this qualification for admission. An exception are universities in the German state of Hesse, who accept this qualification since 2004 for admission to Bachelor's degree courses, but not to the traditional German Diplom degree courses. But with Fachhochschulreife (university of applied sciences entrance qualification) you can visit any Fachhochschule (university of applied sciences) in Germany. You can see the difference between a University / Technische Hochschule and a Fachoberschule very quickly: A Fachhochschule has often the words "University of Applied Science" next to its name.