So, paid education is currently in these states: North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Lower Saxony. Here you have to pay 500 euros per semester for studies, and the fee is the same – for both local and 'foreign' students. And free 'granite of science' in all other states, including Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Schleswig-Holstein.
Also, all students, regardless of whether their university is paid or not, pay the so-called semester fee – somewhere 30-200 euros per semester and for health insurance – another 40-65 euros per month. Well, the cost of education in private institutions can reach up to 20,000 euros per year.
Hunting for a German university
German schoolchildren study for 13 years, not 11 like us. Therefore, a Ukrainian cannot enter a German university immediately after finishing school. He needs to study at our university for 2 years full-time (or 3-4 years part-time), and only then can he submit documents for admission to the 1st year. He must apply for the same specialty that he studied at home. However, no matter how you look at it, blending into the German environment without preparation will be quite difficult, so many experts advise another option for entering a German university: study for 1 year full-time, and then enroll in a preparatory college in Germany (Studienkolleg).
As a rule, these institutions are attached to universities. You can find the college you need on the website – www.studienkollegs.de. To be admitted to study there, you need to know the language at least at level B1. The college lasts exactly one year: it consists of a German language course and 5-7 specialized subjects depending on the student's chosen direction: medicine and pharmacy, technical and natural sciences, economics, humanities and philology (choice depends on where the student will later apply). Then, after graduation from this college, all its students must take an examination to establish knowledge (Festellungsprufung), based on the results of which it is determined whether a particular foreign student can study at a German university.
Education at the college costs nothing, but its students must pay a semester fee, like the students of the university to which the college belongs, from 30 to 200 euros, and insurance – 20-70 euros per month.
Test for 'aces'
Although there are no entrance exams at German universities, some universities require foreigners to take an exam – TestAS. This test was introduced in 2007, it checks the readiness of a foreign student to study in a particular specialty at the university. Its cost is 100 euros. You can take it in either English or German. The test consists of 3 parts – a language test (onDaF), a test of general education subjects, and also test modules in the specialty (choose from: test for future students of natural sciences, for future engineers, economists, and 'humanities').
You can register for it on the website – www.testas.de, but before that you need to contact the Kiev University named after M. P. Dragomanov (www.ipgoe.npu.edu.ua) to obtain a transaction number for registration on the site. The exam takes place there. It is impossible to pass or fail TestAS: after the exam, each student will receive a certificate with their results, but in comparison with the results of other students (next to it the minimum and maximum results obtained in the exam are written). Based on the data from this certificate, universities themselves evaluate whether such students are suitable for them.
Paperwork
Well, having passed all exams, you can safely submit documents to the university. As a rule, in most German universities, the deadline for submitting documents for the winter semester (starts in October) ends in summer – around July 15, and for the summer semester (starts in March) – around January 15. However, there may be exceptions, so it is better to check all deadlines on the university's website. The list of documents for admission is approximately as follows: application form to be filled out on the university's website, autobiography (CV), notarized (or at the embassy) and translated copies of documents about education (diploma and all pages of the grade book), motivation letter, 1-2 letters of recommendation, and a language certificate (German – TestDAF, DSH or Goethe-Institut certificate B2, C1 or C2, and if the program is in English, then – TOEFL or IELTS).
By the way, Germany has a special system for submitting documents for foreigners. In some universities, you can submit documents directly to the international office of the university, but already more than 90 alma maters accept documents through an intermediary – the Uni-assist service (www.uni-assist.de). Its advantage is that you can submit one package of documents to several universities at once. The services of this organization are paid – 55 euros for processing an application to one university, and 15 euros for each subsequent application.
Tests of strength
One of the main conditions for studying at a German university is knowledge of the German language at the appropriate level.
TESTDAF. There are several test options that give the right to study in Germany. The first, analogous to the English TOEFL, is TestDaF. You can take it in Kiev at the DaF Center at the National Pedagogical University named after M. P. Dragomanov on the basis of the Institute of Natural Geographic Education and Ecology. TestDaF is held 5 times a year, its schedule can be found either on the website (www.ipgoe.npu.edu.ua) or on the exam's own web page (www.testdaf.de). On the latter site, you can register for this exam and also pay – 130 euros. TestDaF is scored on a 3-point scale – TDN 3, TDN 4 (passing minimum) and TDN 5.
DSH. The second option is to take the DSH, a German language exam that entitles a foreigner to study at German universities. It can only be taken in Germany and is administered by the admissions committee of the university you are applying to. It is held 3-4 weeks before the start of the academic year, and the test date is set by the administration of the alma mater. This exam can be either free or paid – the price can reach up to 150 euros. The DSH is graded as follows: DSH-1, DSH-2 (passing minimum), DSH-3.
GOETHE-INSTITUT CERTIFICATES. The third option: obtain a Goethe-Institut Certificate of the level required for admission – B2, C1, and C2. These exams can be taken at the Goethe-Institut three times a year: in November, March, and June (check updates on the Goethe-Institut website – www.goethe.de/ukraine). For these exams, you need to register either at the institute's office or by phone, and payment is made on the exam day. The price varies: Certificate B2 costs 980 UAH (for students at the Goethe-Institut – 860), C1 – 1105 (for students – 980), and C2 – 1350 (with a discount – 1105). The tests are also scored differently. For the first two – B2 and C1 – you can get a maximum of 100 points, with a passing minimum of 60. For C2, the maximum is 310 points, and the minimum is 186.
Continued: LURES OF GERMAN UNIVERSITIES - 2
Based on materials from the newspaper 'Segodnya'.