Admission Process

On this page, you can read about the general application/enrollment (admission) process and receive information about the type of response you have received: acceptance, rejection, or rejection with a waiting list option.

The enrollement process

For the application process and later enrollment process, it is important that applicants understand the two completely different points of contact at the Universität Hamburg, which you have to interact with at different stages of your application/enrollment/studies.

To avoid confusion we like to point out that there are two distinct points of contact of the Universität Hamburg you have to deal with for application and enrollment:

1. The IAS Team: The IAS Team is part of the Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg. Amongst other things, the IAS Team + academic advisor is responsible for the application process, selection process, program coordination, curriculum, questions about the IAS program, counseling of students and applicants regarding study plans, and exams. The IAS Team runs the IAS program and also contains the selection committee (a group of professors, post-doctoral researchers, lecturers, academic advisors) who select the applications. You should direct all questions regarding the content of the program, your curriculum, application, website, wiki, and difficulties while studying to the IAS Team. The IAS program has a special appointed academic advisor, who can be reached via ias-team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de and should be contacted regarding the above. The IAS Team is managed by this academic advisor (Dr. Annika Peters), who also is a researcher and lecturer and works closely with the academic office at the department of informatics but not for.

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: 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. The CampusCenter provides central student documents (student ID card, confirmation documents) and has full control over all formal issues leading to your enrollment. 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 (via ias-team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de). 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: ias-team@informatic.uni-hamburg.de

What happens after I send my application? Dates (may change due to coronavirus pandemic) (last update 11 June 2020)

31 March 2020: You have sent your application to the IAS Team at the Department of Informatics before the 31 of March. The IAS Team evaluates (only complete) applications. Everybody else will receive a letter of rejection. Even in coronavirus pandemic times, there is no reconsideration. The number of complete applications exceeded the number of places available 15 times.

22 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 admission 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 admission process in detail and only receive the final list of enrolled students shortly before the start of the semester! Please tell the IAS-Team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de 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 study. 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. The IAS-Team with the academic advisors manages the IAS study program. In general, you should always contact the IAS Team (and your academic advisor) first or in cc: IAS Team's contact: ias-team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de.

Admission Notifications: 11 June 2020 due to the pandemic: The Campus Center will publish the results (acceptance, waiting list, rejection) of the current application period in your STiNE account. The CampusCenter Team decides how many of the top-ranked students receive a letter of acceptance (around 20) and provides instruction on how to enroll. Everybody else receives either a waiting list notification or rejection (missing formal requirements or incomplete application). Please note, 15 May was the "old=without corona" notification date. (See below paragraphs on Acceptance / Waiting List / Rejection for more information).

Enrollment: New date! usually 2 weeks after notification: For enrollment, the accepted applicants have to send certified documents and their enrollment form to the CampusCenter within two weeks. (The letter of acceptance will state what to do and until when.) After sending the enrollment documents and certified copies of your certificates, the accepted applicants are enrolled and for sure a student of the Universität Hamburg. Congratulations. Note: The CampusCenter does not send any acknowledgment for receiving your documents. If you need an acknowledgment, you need to request it via CampusCenter contact form. Anyhow, 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.

By 30 September (maybe later 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 enrolment for assurance/visa/bank account please request it, CampusCenter Contact Form. Please also tell the IAS-Team if you have any worries regarding enrollment.

Arriving in Hamburg: Mid of October: The last two weeks in October are welcome/orientation weeks (date not fixed due to coronavirus pandemic). Please attend.

Semster starts 2 November 2020 Due to the coronavirus pandemic the winter semester will start late - 2 November 2020. At the moment everything is planned for in-class lectures.

Please note, due to the coronavirus pandemic some dates will change or are not fixed yet - nobody knows how the coronavirus pandemic will develop in autumn. The IAS-Team will notify accepted applicants via email (if they have told the IAS-Team that they are accepted). The central administration manages (only!) the notification whether you are accepted/rejected/put on the waiting list and the formal enrollment. That means please notify the IAS-Team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de when you receive a letter of acceptance right away - so we can inform you about how/when the winter semester starts for the new batch.

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. Usually, within 2 weeks after you have received the letter of acceptance, you need to send the matriculation form and officially attested/certified documents to the CampusCenter. Some help for the 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 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?

Yes. 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 for Application and Admission (Ger: Team Bewerbung und Zulassung) is the place where you send your matriculation = central administration of the entire Universität Hamburg. They are two different institutions spread across Hamburg.

In case you are experiencing any problems sending attested/original documents in the given period of time (2 weeks), then please contact both teams together in one email.

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 and you can provide the confirmation once you are in Germany and have accommodation. Please attach a note to your enrollment/matriculation form, saying that you are an international student from outside Europe.

Please check the official information here: Info of Universität Hamburg and 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.

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

The address is given on the top-right hand side of the first page of the letter of acceptance.

How to waive your place (after enrollment)

In case you are one of the 20 lucky students who receive a letter of acceptance in mid of May (11 June 2020!), enrolled yourself, then 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, nobody will be contacted on the waiting list and the place will be lost. For sure, nobody will be contacted when the semester has started.

• Free your accepted place for somebody on the waiting list

I have received a (rejection) notification and have been put on the waiting list ("Ablehnungsbescheid")

If you have received a German-only letter, you can find a translation here.

What does this waiting list letter mean?

You have fulfilled the application requirements and your application was ranked by the selection committee. Unfortunately, your rank was outside the range of available spaces and you have been put on the waiting list for this year. The Team for Application and Admission will send out offers until the available spaces have been filled. If people first accept the offer and later retract their enrollment, it can happen that you even receive an offer letter shortly before the start of the semester (in which case we usually can find special arrangements to allow for enough time). The first wave of letters already includes a considerable amount of overbooking to shorten the time until all spaces could be filled. That also means that only if the number of enrolled students decreases to 19 - the next on the waiting list is notified. This depends on the fairness of the accepted students of each batch. The waiting list letter also contains the numbers of how far up/down you are on the waiting list. In 2019 nobody was contacted on the waiting list.

How does the waiting list work?

At the beginning of the admission process (11 June 2020), a number of applicants receive a letter of acceptance. This number is calculated by the number of available spaces (so far 20 each year) plus a percentage for overbooking. If fewer students reply than there are available spaces, more offer letters are sent out to the next applicants of the waiting list until all 20 spaces are filled. This means that if you are high up on the waiting list, you may receive a letter of acceptance a few weeks after the official publication date of the results. Please check your STiNE online account on a regular basis for a new letter in "Documents"! This really depends on the fairness of the accepted students.

Is the waiting list carried over to next year?

No, the waiting list is not carried over to the next application period. Once the admission process has finished (i.e. all spaces are successfully filled), the waiting list is reset. If you would like to reapply please ask the IAS Team for advice and please check the requirements close to the application period (February-March). They will change each year. Usually, if you have been ranked and received a number higher than 30 on the waiting list means that you will most properly do not have a chance the next year either (with the same application).

I have received a rejection notification on formal grounds ("Ablehnungsbescheid")

If you have received a German-only letter, you can find a translation here.

What does this rejection letter mean?

You receive this letter if the selection committee has decided that you don't fulfill one or more of the requirements. This usually is due to missing credits from the field of computer science, insufficient language proficiency, or incomplete applications due to missing documents. Your application has therefore not been ranked and had to be rejected on formal grounds. Even in 2020 the number of complete applications exceeded the number of available places by 15 times. That means there were no exceptions made due to the coronavirus pandemic. The formal requirements were strictly enforced as mentioned on the IAS Website and this wiki. There is no reconsideration possible.

My application was rejected due to missing credits from computer science but I surely have enough?

As mentioned in the formal requirements the selection committee carefully checks all submitted evidence for credits in computer science. Check the formal requirement page's specifics on which courses will be and will not be counted as computer science core courses. Since there are many more applications than available spaces, the selection committee is very strict with this requirement. The relatedness of your degree to the standard BSc Informatik here in Hamburg is part of the selection criteria, so even a degree close to the boundary of 60 ECTS will receive a less favorable ranking since the 60 ECTS are the minimum. Even though the self-made table may help in understanding your transcript and courses, putting in various courses does not guarantee that they are accepted as core computer science courses. Please consult the formal requirements.

My application was rejected due to language proficiency?

All applicants receive a formal rejection who did not provide valid proof of their English language proficiency. Please consult the formal requirements page on language proficiency for detailed information.

Applicants:

• who have handed in a listed English language certificate which is below the required mark receive a reject.
• who did not hand in any English Language Certificate and did not describe and provide proof in an extra letter/document their Englisch language proficiency (native speakers) will be rejected
• who were not able to complete their Englisch Language certificate due to the coronavirus pandemic receive a reject (Sorry - there are too many complete applications)
• who provided an additional letter but had only a "medium of instruction" or "high school English" as proof of the English language proficiency are rejected
• who handed in alternative English Proficiency tests which are not listed are rejected, e.g. University entry tests.
• who handed in screenshots of English Proficiency tests displaying preliminary results of any language proficiency test.

• who tried to fulfill the requirement through alternative means will often be rejected on these grounds if the selection committee does not see enough evidence for language proficiency on the required level.

Please consult the formal requirements page on language proficiency for detailed information and acceptable alternative proofs.

My application was rejected due to missing documents

As mentioned on the required documents page, you have sent all required documents in due time. The deadline is on the 31 March. Faxes, e-mails and postal mail are not accepted with additional documents after this deadline (even in coronavirus times). The IAS selection committee does not inform you of missing documents or late applications or corrupted pdfs or empty pages of your application pdf. Your application is considered incomplete if one or more of the required documents are not received before the deadline (via postal mail / email to ias-team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de) and/or if your STiNE online application form is not submitted online, or your application pdf was not readable. As a result, your application will not take part in the selection process. You can not submit missing documents after the expiration of the application deadline, there will be no reconsideration.

What can I do if I think the given reason has to be wrong or if I really need to ask a question?

First of all: Please always state, your full name, the application number, and which letter you have received, be friendly and patient. Other emails will not be answered at all. Please note, you have received the official information (letter) already by the central administration (CampusCenter).

The selection committee carefully reviews each application - at least 3 independent reviewers. Applications close to the required mark in the language certificate or close to 60 ECTS have been triple checked by the selection committee by the time you received the rejection. This is also true for rejections on the ground of missing documents - there is really nothing the selection committee or anybody can do for you. You may ask the IAS Team/Selection Committee for explanation and/or look in your case again and/or for statistics - please do so friendly - stating your full name, the application number, and your question: ias-team@informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Please be patient, it is not the IAS Teams main task answering emails of rejected students, but you will get an answer eventually). Please do not get your hopes up - the decision has been made. You may reapply next year if your ranking ist 78% or higher (Please ask the selection committee whether they would advise that.)

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.