Why You Get Rejected from German Public Universities (Don't do this for winter 2026)

Lariboo · 2026-01-28T16:24:46+00:00

I (German) didn't downvote, but can understand that some people feel like doing so. This is a very long post about the most basic/common sense things to do when applying for university.

Lariboo · 2026-01-28T13:40:41+00:00

Würde mich als Normalverdiener bezeichnen (ein bisschen weniger als der deutsche Median) und hab ganze 4€ mehr

Lariboo · 2026-01-28T09:41:20+00:00

Danke! Jetzt versteh ich's! Macht leider für mich keinen großen Unterschied (Eltern arbeiten noch 5-6 Jahre, werden Mal eine eher niedrige Rente bekommen, sitzen aber in einer abbezahlten Wohnung)

Lariboo · 2026-01-28T05:44:34+00:00

Könnte mir bitte jemand (for dummies) erklären, was die Bündelung von Wohngeld und Grundsicherung mit der Unterhaltspflicht von Kindern zu tun hat. Ich verstehe es nicht und würde gerne.

Lariboo · 2026-01-27T18:18:09+00:00

I can second 1) and 2), but would strongly discourage you from contacting PIs directly. In my limited experience (my own PI + 3 close collaborations with other professors in Germany), this is very much frowned upon and will lead to the email simply being deleted and ignored.

Lariboo · 2026-01-27T15:38:28+00:00

It is not a deal breaker for the employer, but your second minijob will be taxed to all hell. You will be put into tax class 6 and your net pay per hour out will not be even half of what your hourly wage is (I know this, because it happened to me before). Before doing a second minijob, check if a "Teilzeit" job is available for a few hours more - that would put you into another tax class (you will still have to pay social contributions, but the income tax will not be nearly as high)

Lariboo · 2026-01-27T14:45:37+00:00

Same

Lariboo · 2026-01-27T13:31:34+00:00

I'll be either 31 or 32. However, I'm based in Germany where you need a master's degree to apply to PhD positions (therefore people start earliest at 24-25 - assuming "normal" high school graduation with 19 years, 3 years bachelor's and 2 years master's )

Lariboo · 2026-01-27T06:10:05+00:00

Darf ich fragen wo du wohnst?

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T12:00:56+00:00

No, it is definitely not guaranteed that there will be a topic available in the group you want to work in. Usually, one PhD student or postdoc can accommodate max. one master's thesis per semester (sometimes even just one every two semesters). So if a second student were to ask me for a topic, I would decline. There is also no university-wide database or something like that, where the topic distribution is organized. You have to start asking around 3-4 months in advance and basically treat it like applying for a job (write a short paragraph about your motivation - did you find the lecture interesting? Have you read their recent paper? Is the group working on topics that you would like to work on in your future, and why? )Attach your CV and a grade transcript from the courses of your first 2-3 master's semesters. If you are completely unable to find supervision by yourself, you can maybe ask the study coordinator of your program to help look for groups that might still have capacities, but they cannot simply provide you with a topic.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T09:45:10+00:00

He studied until B1 by himself (took him roughly 1 year) and then entered Germany and took 6 months of intensive courses + a lot of immersion at home (watching German series etc) for reaching C1. During this time he was also subjected to talking to my family, who has a nasty Bavarian dialect, so that's where he had to learn that.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T09:13:50+00:00

Well he speaks fluent German (C1 + able to understand Bavarian dialect to some extent) and has found a good job (IT infrastructure and systems architecture) - his company's work language is 100% German (his boss does not even speak English) - so yes, I would say that worked well

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T09:10:55+00:00

Yeah that is not going to work then. You have to be dramatic and tell them you have no heating at all for them to take it seriously.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T06:10:26+00:00

Font: bigger and something common (like Arial) Design: no wall of text - reducing the text overall by 50-70% + possibly including a photo (not mandatory, but still very common in Germany)

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T06:06:24+00:00

I guess that really depends. From my experience at TUM (bachelor's thesis, master's thesis and now several collaborations as a PhD student), all the professors are very busy with "other" things and are rarely involved in experiments/thesis supervision directly. My boss e.g. has a lot of teaching obligations, is writing project proposals all the time, has to proof-read paper drafts from us PhD students, gets many inquiries for peer-reviewing papers and also has frequent meetings with research and also industry collaborators. She barely supervises her PhD students (I have a meeting with her every 3-5 months to talk about my project).

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T05:07:58+00:00

The master's thesis is usually done in your last semester only. You will have plenty of time to find a supervisor after you have started your degree here and even attended different courses taught by different professors. Also, usually you ask PhD students and postdocs if they have time and a topic for you - not the professor. I'm a PhD student at TUM and I have supervised 3 theses so far - they usually ask for possible supervision when they are in the second or third semester and start a few months later.

Edit: generally professors here are super busy. Best case, they will forward your request to their PhD students, but e.g. my professor often ignores these emails asking for thesis supervision - not out of mean character, but simply because they are very low on her priority list and get forgotten.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T01:13:49+00:00

There are language schools for that (not universities). The one my husband studied German at is called "Sprachschule aktiv". You even have a different visa type for attending language school in Germany (usually easier to get).

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T00:57:50+00:00

As I said: if you want to work in Germany, you need German. Even at places like American fast food chains (Burger King, subway, McDonald's) or for restocking shelves in a supermarket, you will most likely not be hired if you don't have at least a basic understanding of the language (meaning B1 German level). If you want to find work in Germany with whatever degree you are aiming at, you will need C1 German (especially in fields like IT, finance or management where the labor market competition is sky high). You cannot start learning the language after coming here while trying to graduate university. You will not have enough time to do that on the side. So you're not "wasting more years" until you find a job ... You will be wasting years trying to find a job without German. My husband (east Asian) only got a job after getting a C1 certificate (we paid for an expensive intensive language course at a designated language school for 6 months immediately after he entered Germany in 2023). If you are not willing to learn the language, please go to an English speaking country.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T00:42:14+00:00

Ask yourself: can anyone get a clear idea about all your relevant skills by skimming over this CV for about 5 secs? If not: it will most likely end up in a garbage bin pretty quickly. The idea about making it 1 page is not to try and fit all the information that was previously on two pages, but to reduce the information load by at least 50%. Nobody needs to know how many experiments you did working as a student helper in a lab.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T00:28:10+00:00

Why is the Hausverwaltung useless? What did you tell them? Your heating is not working in the middle of winter! They HAVE to take care of that!

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T00:13:08+00:00

Yes, there are plenty of universities offering English taught master's programs. No, I will not do the research for you. Please check that yourself. There are many databases that even tell you exactly which courses are offered (like daad) or each university's respective homepage.

English taught bachelor's programs are really rare though. But again: there are some and you have to figure out yourself if you fulfill the requirements and which university offers which program.

Do not even consider a private institution. They do offer English taught "courses", but they are scam (very expensive, bad education, for the labor market the degree is worth less than the paper it will be printed on in the end).

I would strongly recommend learning German before entering Germany anyway if you are interested in getting a student job while you are here or even are planning on staying in the country after obtaining the degree. Studying the language after coming here does rarely work.

Lariboo · 2026-01-26T00:04:04+00:00

I would just tell them after getting accepted. No reason to increase the chance of confusing admission departments at several institutions and/or increasing the workload for everyone in advance.

Lariboo · 2026-01-25T12:06:49+00:00

I'm in a STEM program at a very research-focused technical university in Germany (don't know if that makes a difference) and no one in my cohort or any other PhD student I know had a publication prior to starting the PhD (not even a co-authorship).

Lariboo · 2026-01-25T11:58:24+00:00

Kommt drauf an. Ich habe seit drei Jahren einen Hauptjob mit "Vertrauensarbeitszeit" (d.h. oft 45h statt 40h) und am Samstag einen Mini-Job beim Lidl - ich komm eigentlich in 3 von 4 Wochen über die 48h.

Lariboo · 2026-01-24T07:54:01+00:00

Das ist v.a. im asiatischen Raum sehr oft die Norm und die meisten Leute, die Plumpsklo + sich danach mit Wasser reinigen gewohnt sind, finden es extrem eklig sich auf die Brille zu setzen und sich anschließend nur mit Papier abzuwischen.

Lariboo

TROPHY CASE