Life in Germany- Getting admission letter from a German University

Hey guys,

I see so many of our student friends thinking to carry their studies abroad. I was one of you 3 years back. I came here in September 2014 to do my masters in Chemical Engineering at TUHH Hamburg. I have successfully completed my M.Sc. and currently pursuing PhD at IMEC Belgium.

The point of this blog series-Life in Germany-is to try and explain the procedure of landing a Masters program in one of the German University and getting the Visa to Germany once you have the admission letter.

Also, I would like to add that if you are in doubt (as I was) about coming here for your studies, I would say just go for it. Its totally worth it!

So here goes...

Chapter 1: Landing an admission letter from a German University

First thing's first, it is very important that you know which course and university you are interested in. Do some research and find out a list of German universities that provide quality education in your field of interest (Useful website: https://www.daad.de). 

Keep this university list ready as you will need it to send your GRE scores online right after you finish the test.

Important documents required for applying to German university and general threshold scores:

1) 12th grade sheet (80 percent and above)

2) Transcripts of your Bachelor studies (CGPA - 8.0 and above)

3) TOEFL or IELTS (90 and above for TOEFL and 7.5 and above for IELTS)

4) Good Statement of Purpose (SOP) or cover letter (very important; 1 page max)

5) Clear and concise CV or resume (very important; 2 pages max)

6) GRE* (300 and above; not mandatory but adds weight to your application; highly recommended)

*GRE scores are to be sent directly to the German university right after the test, So you need to know which university you are interested in. You can send scores to up to 4 universities for free. For additional universities after that you have to pay an additional fees of approx 30$.

Next, Go to the online admission portal of your selected institute and upload the required documents (except GRE). Do this process quite some time before the deadline to be on the safer side. You will also have to send the original copy of Bachelor transcripts via post to that university. Once all the documents are received by the university, you will either get a mail from their office or your online application status will change to "processing" in their portal. Finally, if you are accepted, you will get an admission letter from their admissions office through post and by email. You can then start your Visa procedure (explained in the next chapter).

P.S.: In my case, I did my B.Tech from Industrial Biotechnology, had a CGPA of 8.8/10, TOEFL score of 110/120 and GRE score of 310/340. I applied for an integrated PhD course at Max Planck (highly ambitious) and got rejected in the first round. Then applied for the master course in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering at TUHH (through their online admission portal) and got the admission letter for Winter semester 2014 within 2 months of applying.

P.P.S:  My course was an international course with all the lectures and teaching materials provided in English. There are various international courses that do not require a knowledge of German language which you can apply for. However, if you apply for a normal master course (in German language) you need to also present a German language proficiency level B1 certificate from an authorized German teaching institute (Example: Goethe institute) before you can apply for visa.