The moment of reckoning has arrived for the 21,000 applicants for places in undergraduate and Law Studies at the University of Bremen. As of now, all those who have applied for places on Bachelor programs and in Law Studies in the coming winter semester will be able to follow the progress of their applications online. If they are successful, they will also be able to confirm acceptance of an offer of a study place online, too. Preliminary processing has been completed and applicants have been shortlisted according to their grades and how long they have already been waiting for a place. Anyone awarded a ranking in subjects where capacity is available will therefore be receiving an invitation to enroll.

Dialogue-orientated services facilitate the award of places

This year the University of Bremen introduced a new enrollment procedure. All places for new students on Bachelor programs and in Law Studies will be awarded via the dialogue-orientated service run by the Stiftung fürHochschulzulassung (“hochschulstart.de”). This procedure makes it possible to submit up to twelve applications for a place at the University of Bremen and other universities, enabling the selection results to be matched. This means that in future it will not happen that applicants receive multiple enrollment invitations, making it easier for everyone. When the ranking lists are published online, applicants will be able to see whether they have been awarded a place, or alternatively actively follow the progress of their ranking and chances of receiving an invitation to enroll. Vacant places will automatically be allocated to the next applicant on the ranking list.

Some statistics

Just how good the chances of being awarded a place are varies from subject to subject. The most sought after places, and therefore the greater the odds against being awarded a place, are in the subjects of Psychology, Teacher Training for Elementary Schools, Media Studies, and some areas of Teacher Training for Higher Secondary Education. In these subjects there are between 25 and 35 more applications than vacant places of study. As in recent years, most of the applications have been received for Psychology (4,996), Business Studies (2,968), Teacher Training for Elementary Schools (2,799) and Law Studies (2,187), although the number of applications for Biology, Public Health and History is also quite high and the chances of being awarded a place correspondingly low.

Overall, for the 4,000 places of study offered for Bachelor programs and Law Studies at the University of Bremen, more than 33,000 applications were received from a total of 23,700 candidates. This equates to about 700 fewer applicants but some 9,000 more applications than last year. Due to the double intake of school leavers in Lower Saxony (2011) and Bremen (2012), the University of Bremen has raised the number of available places of study by 400.

Unlike Bachelor studies, applications for places on Master programs follow no prescribed schedule. This is because each of the departments has its own processing and selection procedure, and this takes some time. Approximately 6,500 graduates from Bachelor studies submitted applications for enrollment on the Master programs offered at the University of Bremen. That is 1,000 more than last year.

Even though in 2013 the University published the number of new places available at an earlier date, the enrollment procedure still won’t be complete until the beginning of the semester. This is because, as experience shows, quite a large number of successful candidates either choose not to embark on studies or withdraw their application in favor of an invitation from another university.

You can obtain more information by contacting:
Universität Bremen
Dezernat für studentische Angelegenheiten
Christina Vocke
Phone: +49 421 219 61000
email: cvocke@uni-bemen.de