Admission Process

This page explains the admission and enrollment process. If you have received a letter of acceptance, please read the following information carefully. If you have received a rejection or a rejection with a waiting list option, please redirect to this Page: Rejection & WaitingList.

Points of contact:

To avoid confusion, we would like to explain the two distinct points of contact at the Universität Hamburg that you have to communicate with for the application and enrollment process:

1. Your first point of contact is the IAS Team. The IAS Team is part of the Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg. Among other things, the IAS Team and academic advisor is responsible for the application process, selection process, program coordination, curriculum, questions about the IAS program, counselling of students and applicants regarding study plans, and exams. The IAS Team runs the IAS program and contains the selection committee (a group of professors, post-doctoral researchers, lecturers, academic advisors) who select the applications. Please direct all questions regarding the content of the program, your curriculum, application, website, wiki, and difficulties while studying to the IAS Team. The academic advisor manages the IAS Team. The academic advisor is a researcher and lecturer, who cooperates closely with the academic office at the department of informatics. When contacting the IAS Team, please keep in mind that their main tasks are research and teaching - not administrative tasks. Contact the IAS Team

The academic office at the department of informatics for enrolled students: There is also an academic coordinator for IAS (Björn Hanssen) who you should contact when you have questions regarding e.g. module and exam registrations, recognition of credit points, recognition of german lectures or other lectures, transcript, etc.). They are not involved in the application process and will only become relevant once you start studying at Universität Hamburg Contact academic office.

2. CampusCenter Team: part of the central administration of the entire university. The Team for Application and Admission ("Team Bewerbung und Zulassung TBZ") is located at the Campus Center - Main Campus and part of the central administration (Do not confuse this with the IAS Team and Selection Committee). They are running the online system STiNE, are centrally responsible for all admissions at the university, as well as for processing admissions and handling legal issues for around 44000 students at UHH. The CampusCenter provides central student documents (student ID card, confirmation documents) and has full control over all formal issues leading to your enrollment (after the Selection Committee reviewed and ranked the applications). Once you are fully enrolled (paid semester contribution), responsibility is (partly) handed back to the IAS-Team and the academic office at the department of informatics and to your academic advisor who is the contact for all study issues. The CampusCenter is responsible for sending your letter of acceptance/rejection/waiting list and the enrollment process. You will need to send your enrollment documents to the CampusCenter once accepted!. Please contact the Campus Center for all questions regarding the official enrollment or confirmation of enrollment for a visa. Contact them via the CampusCenter.

As a rule of thumb - always contact the IAS Team first: How to contact the IAS Team

What happens after I send my application?

31 March You have sent your application to the IAS Team at the Department of Informatics before the 31 of March. In the next step the IAS Team evaluates your application.

Early May the IAS Team sends a list ranking all eligible applicants to the CampusCenter Team (the central administration of Universität Hamburg). Once the ranking is done, the enrollment process is happening at the CampusCenter until you are fully enrolled. This also means that we at the department of informatics have no access to the enrollment process in detail and only receive the final list of enrolled students shortly before the start of the semester! Please tell the IAS Team as soon as you have received a letter of acceptance and when you have enrolled yourself in order for you to receive all informational emails regarding the start of your studies. Find the IAS Team contact information here. The IAS Team will stay in contact with the accepted students after application to ease the transition into your new study program in October/November, e.g. weeks of orientation. The IAS-Team with the academic advisors manages the IAS study program. In general, you should always contact or at least cc the IAS Team (= your academic advisor) first.

Mid-May Admission notification: The Campus Center will publish the results (acceptance, waiting list, rejection) of the current application period in your STiNE account. The Campus Center Team decides how many of the top-ranked students receive a letter of acceptance (around 20 + overbookings) and provides instruction on how to enroll. Everybody else receives either a waiting list notification or rejection (missed minimum requirements or incomplete application). For rejections and waiting list, please read this page: Rejection & WaitingList.

For accepted students:

Enrollment Deadline: 25th June! usually 1-2 weeks after notification: For enrollment, the accepted applicants have to follow the procedure stated in their letter of acceptance (that is always the most up-to-date information). For 2020, online enrollment is possible. Check your letter! It is always a good idea to emphasize that you are an international student if it is possible in the new online process - see health insurance section and links in the FAQa. After sending/uploading the enrollment form and copies of your certificates, the accepted applicants are enrolled and for sure a student of the Universität Hamburg. Congratulations.

Acknowledgment of enrollment: The CampusCenter may not send any acknowledgment for receiving your documents (especially if you have sent documents via postal mail). If you need an "special" acknowledgment for a visa, you need to request it via CampusCenter contact form. Once enrolled, your place for the Master International Adaptive Systems is secured until the semester starts even though you might not have received any preliminary semester documents and have not paid the semester contribution. Please read the paragraph about Health insurance.

By Mid of August - 30 September (maybe later or earlier due to the coronavirus pandemic) the CampusCenter will have sent an email with your new student STiNE login, preliminary semester documents, and demand for payment of your semester contribution. After you have paid you will receive your full semester documents (at that point you will have arrived in Germany and at Universität Hamburg, probably will have started studying). Sending the preliminary documents that late is an administrative decision of the central administration (CampusCenter) at the Universität Hamburg. Sorry. Sometimes they are really late in September (2020 might be even later) with sending this one email with preliminary documents. Do not worry and if you need an acknowledgment of preliminary enrollment for assurance/visa/bank account please request it, CampusCenter Contact Form. Please also tell the IAS-Team in cc if you have any worries regarding enrollment.

Arriving in Hamburg and orientation weeks: 26 October: The last two weeks in October are welcome/orientation weeks. Please attend. Orientation/Introductory courses for IAS start on 26 October 2020 (see emails regarding Orientation). Additionally, for all (international) students there are online introductory courses organized by PIASTA: https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/piasta/veranstaltungen/piasta-welcome.html

Semster starts 2 November 2020 Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the winter semester will start late - 2 November 2020. The Universität Hamburg has not made any more decisions regarding another online semester so far. All accepted students who have confirmed their acceptance and enrollment plans with the IAS Team will receive updates via mail asap. Please, also check https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/newsroom/intern/2020/0131-corona-faq.html for general information about studying at UHH with coronavirus.

The central administration (CampusCenter) manages only the notification whether you are accepted/rejected/put on the waiting list and the formal enrollment and visa issues. That means please notify the IAS Team when you receive a letter of acceptance right away. Then we can inform you about how/when the winter semester starts for the new batch and provide you with updates on the coronavirus changes.

I have received a letter of acceptance ("Zulassungsbescheid")

Congratulations! You are one of the top 20 of a very long list of applicants. The letter of acceptance is very precious for a lot of applicants. The letter of acceptance should tell you how and when you need to enroll yourself. Some help for the offline matricualtion form is provided here: see the matriculation form page. The enrollment is managed by the central administration's CampusCenter Team Application and Admission who manages all enrollments of the entire Universität Hamburg. If you have questions regarding how to enroll please ask the CampusCenter

If you are NOT planning to take the place PLEASE waive the acceptance officially - only when you do so before the semester starts another applicant will be notified. * Free your place for somebody on the waiting list

I have already sent certified/attested copies for application, do I have to send them again for matriculation?

Until 2019 yes. 2020 online enrollment is possible. For 2021 we do not know yet. Please follow the instructions stated in the letter of acceptance. You have to understand that the "IAS Team (+selection committee)" at the Department of Informatics is the place where you sent your application. The University’s Team at the CampusCenter ("Team for Application and Admission, Ger: Team Bewerbung und Zulassung) is the place where you send your enrollment documents = central administration of the entire Universität Hamburg. They are two different institutions spread across Hamburg.

In case you are experiencing any problems while enrolling yourself, then please contact both teams together in one email.

For 2020 your letter of acceptance states this:

To enroll, you will first need to accept the university place. Pursuant to Section 25 subsection 1 no. 1–3 of the University     Admission Bylaws (UniZS), you must meet the following requirements:

1. Carefully complete the following form: www.uni-hamburg.de/online-enrollment
Submit this form and attach all of the supporting documents detailed in the checklist www.uni-hamburg.de/checklistmasterinternational
2. Universität Hamburg must receive your complete enrollment application by June 25, 2020. This deadline is final; no extensions can be granted.

If you fail to meet any of these requirements, your application will become invalid and you will no longer be able to enroll.

If your letter of acceptance states the above, please follow these instructions and follow these links: they should lead you to the online procedure. Please check your letter and with the campus center if you are unsure what to do.

I do not have German health insurance! What do I have to do?

You can only get German health insurance once you have a valid address in Germany. The Campus Center Team for Application and Admission is aware of this problem for international students. You need to provide the confirmation once you are in Germany and have accommodation. It is always a good idea to state in enrollment/matriculation form, that you are an international student from outside Europe/Germany (if the online form let's you).

Please check the official information here: Info of Universität Hamburg and Info of the city of Hamburg. If you are over 30 years old please also read the section about 30 years and older: Info of the city of Hamburg :

Travel health insurance does not provide sufficient coverage for the duration of studies in Germany.

Please see the FAQ section on health insurance.

If the next semester is online - you do not need a German health insurance if you are not in Germany.

Where do I have to send the matriculation (enrollment) documents?

The letter of acceptance tells you how to enroll. In 2020 the online enrollment is possible.

How to waive your place (after enrollment)

In case you are one of the 20 lucky students receiving a letter of acceptance in June 2020 and have enrolled yourself, but decided you do not want to start studying the IAS Master, please fill in this form as early as possible: Please be a fair player, otherwise, people on the waiting list won't be contacted and the place will be lost. Nobody will be contacted when the semester has started.

• Free your accepted place for somebody on the waiting list

I have visa problems

Please contact immanuel.petermeier@uni-hamburg.de from the central administration. Please note, you need to provide in detail personal information (name, program, enrolled, country, problem, application nr) and ask a precise question. Mr. Petermeier is responsible for all Internationals of the entire university - it may take a while for him to answer. He has certainly no time to write 1000 emails asking for your full information email by email. You may also use the contact form of the CampusCenter. Please put the IAS Team in cc. You can find the IAS Team contact information here.

Postponing the start of your studies once accepted

You may come late during the first semester until 31 March the next year if you pay your semester contribution. That means you miss your first semester (if it is not online). The IAS study program cannot hold your place for longer than that. That means if you want to start in the next year's winter semester you need to apply again without any better chances than any other applicant of the new application period.

Statistics 2020

Short statistics: Usually, there are more than 400 applications and only 20 open spaces to be filled therefore the requirements for applying are strict with no exception. Even in the coronavirus times, the application number has been >300 from 35 nations for 20 spaces. The Top 30 included 19 nations, 40% women, 60% men.