Work and service center for international student applications
The work and service center for international student applications (uni-assist) eV is a joint institution of German universities , the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Rectors' Conference (HRK).
In addition to institutions such as the Academic Evaluation Centers (APS) at the cultural departments of the German embassies in the People's Republic of China and Vietnam and the TestDaF Institute with its worldwide centers, uni-assist is also an institution that emerged in the course of the internationalization of German universities. It is intended to support international prospective students with their application and to ensure clearly defined standards without restricting the universities in questions of university admission . uni-assist is partly the German equivalent of international institutions such as Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) in Great Britain .
uni-assist was founded in November 2003 by 41 universities, the DAAD and the HRK as a registered association . Club and branch are based in Berlin . uni-assist is a joint service facility of the participating universities and is financed through application fees, donations and grants . The start-up funding was provided by the DAAD with funds from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The association does not collect any membership fees from the participating universities . According to the statutes, uni-assist does not pursue any commercial goals, "the amount of the fees is based on the actual costs". The statutes stipulate that any surpluses generated are used for further tasks in the context of international student applications in accordance with the resolutions of the general assembly .
tasks
uni-assist checks their foreign study applications on behalf of its member universities. uni-assist is neither responsible for sovereign issues such as university admission nor for decisions on residence law. uni-assist checks the authenticity and completeness of the application documents and evaluates the foreign certificates according to the evaluation suggestions of the Central Office for Foreign Education (ZaB) at the Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK): The ZaB determines whether foreign secondary school qualifications are or are equivalent to the German Abitur if required for admission to higher education further education certificates such as proof of passing the university entrance examination or study periods in the home country, the completion of the preparatory courses in Germany or whether specific additional criteria must be met such as certain subjects assignments in the last years of secondary school or reaching minimum grades . In addition, uni-assist determines the German equivalents to the foreign certificate grades and checks other university requirements such as language skills, internship certificates, CVs, letters of recommendation, APS certificates.
According to the resolution of the general assembly of November 28, 2007 (expansion of tasks according to statute § 2, paragraph 1) universities have the possibility to commission uni-assist with the processing of domestic study applications. While the amount of the fee is determined by a resolution of the general assembly, each university can decide individually whether to pay the applicant fee itself or to have it paid by the applicant (Articles of Association § 5, Paragraph 2).
Since the 2008/09 winter semester, uni-assist has been examining national and international applications for master’s courses for a large number of universities.
organization
More than 190 German universities have come together in uni-assist (as of January 2020). The board consists of five elected rectors and presidents of the member universities and one representative each from the DAAD and HRK as statutory members . The chairman of the board is Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jens Strackeljan, deputy chairwoman of the board is Prof. Dr. Ingeborg Schramm-Wölk. The office is located at Geneststrasse 5, 10829 Berlin.
criticism
The uni-assist eV association can be viewed as the outsourcing of work processes and costs that arise at universities when applying for foreign students. When the association is involved in the application process, the costs incurred are completely passed on to the applicants. Criticism of the association's practice was also voiced by the AStA of the University of Potsdam.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b statutes of the association uni-assist eV ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ hurdle or help? Criticism of the uni-assist association , Deutschlandfunk, March 3, 2006
