It will be easier to get into medical faculties in Germany
As Deutsche Welle notes, the issue concerns the main selection criterion of Numerus Clausus – the average grade of the high school diploma, the universities' own selection criteria, and the waiting time for applicants who do not meet these criteria.
Everything is decided by the competition of diplomas
Currently, the selection of students for medical faculties is roughly the same as for those wishing to study other professions. There are no entrance exams to universities in Germany. A high school graduate submits an application (along with a copy of the diploma) stating what and where exactly they would like to study. They name six possible universities.
If in one of them, for a certain number of study places in the desired faculty, there are not as many applicants with a better entrance grade (Numerus Clausus) than theirs, they are accepted. But if there are more applicants with a better average grade than theirs than there are study places, they will have to be refused.
However, this does not mean they will not get in. Only 20 percent of medical students in Germany are selected based on the best average grade. Some study places are reserved specifically for foreigners (thus ensuring the international, cosmopolitan nature of education and communication), and some are intended for those whose Numerus Clausus is too low to ever pass the selection, but since they absolutely want to become doctors, they are willing to wait for years (more on this category below).
And about half of first-year students are selected by the universities themselves according to their own selection criteria. This could be, for example, school practice in a hospital, work as a governess abroad (meaning the applicant has certain life experience and knows what responsibility is).
Seven years of waiting
But, unfortunately, as the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe noted, the vast majority of universities also carry out selection primarily based on the average grade of the diploma. This leads to the fact that in 2017, even applicants with a Numerus Clausus of 1.2 (1 is the highest grade in Germany), that is, practically straight-A students, had very little chance of getting into medical faculties. Other applicants had even better average grades, and competition for these faculties is very high: 62,000 applicants for 11,000 places in 2017.
The "waiting" option, where those who did not pass the diploma competition essentially join a live queue, waiting for free places in medical faculties reserved specifically for this category, also did not satisfy the Constitutional Court. The fact is that there are few such places in Germany, so applicants have to wait an average of 7 or even more years. This is too long, the judges noted, demanding that a waiting limit be set. What exactly this limit should be is now up to the German federal states to determine by the end of 2019.
They will also have to decide how to change the selection system for medical faculties to equalize the chances of choosing a profession for applicants with not very good average diploma grades. According to the Constitutional Court's decision, at least one more criterion must be developed – for example, an interview. In any case, it will become easier to get into medical faculties in Germany.
Let us recall that for students from other countries, a separate competition of diplomas applies. The average grade is made up of the grade for the final exam at a German pre-university college or grades obtained at a university in their home country, to which the arithmetic mean of grades in the school diploma is added.