Foundation for University Admission

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Headquarters of the SfH in Dortmund's Kreuzviertel

The Foundation for Higher Education Admissions ( SfH ), until 2008 the central office for the allocation of study places ( ZVS ), is a legally responsible foundation under public law in Germany with the task of " supporting the higher education institutions using the foundation's services in carrying out the admission procedures "( Art. 2 No. 1 StV university admission) as well as for courses that are included in the central allocation procedure," Study places for the first semester at state universities to be allocated in selection procedures "( Art. 5 Para. 1 No. 1 StV university admission) . It has its seat in Dortmund ( Art. 1 Para. 1 StV university admission).

Of the 11,000 courses offered at around 400 universities in Germany, the following subjects are included in the foundation's central award procedure:

Since May 16, 2012, an application portal operated by the Foundation for University Admissions has been available to support universities in carrying out their local selection procedures (local NC). In this portal, the participating universities announce their degree programs for the first professional degree programs. Applicants can register and apply on this portal and have the opportunity to follow the processing status of their applications or to change the priorities of their study wishes.

History and tasks

In order to distribute the high number of applicants for certain courses among the various universities , the Central Registration Office was founded by the West German Rectors' Conference in the 1960s . Previously, applicants for a study place had to apply individually to the individual universities with different local grade limits. The registration office awarded study places for the medical subjects to applicants with the best Abitur grades. As a result of the numerus clausus judgment in 1972 was then under a state contract , the Central Office for the Allocation of Study Places legal entity under public law as a successor to the Central Registration Authority created and built 1,973th It should guarantee nationwide uniform grade limits for particularly popular subjects in which the number of applicants exceeded the number of study places.

As a result, more and more courses were included in the central award procedure because the number of applicants continued to rise ( baby boomers = baby boomers from the end of the 1950s; increasing high school graduation rate ). Further judgments on the licensing problem then prompted a revision of the State Treaty; this was decided in 1978. It contained an extended selection procedure, which was only used in the winter semester 1981/1982. In addition to the Abitur grade, this included new criteria such as quotas according to disadvantage or country . Since not all students were assigned to their desired study location, the study location could then be swapped with someone. Long queues regularly formed in front of the ZVS building on the reference dates on January 15 and July 15 because the date of receipt by the ZVS and not the date of the postmark was decisive and faxing was not permitted due to the required signature. Some applications were even submitted a few minutes before midnight.

In the 2000s, the number of applicants decreased. That is why fewer subjects and places are now included in the central allocation process. So was z. B. In 2005, the nationwide admission-restricted course in Business Administration with local admission. Local admission procedures are also increasingly used to create more competition between universities.

With the state treaty on the establishment of a joint institution for university admission ( StV Hochschulzulassung ), all 16 federal states agreed by June 2008 to convert the ZVS from an institution under public law into a foundation. The new foundation for university admission took over the tasks of the ZVS on May 1st, 2010. The seat of the foundation is also Dortmund.

In 2008 the predecessor of the foundation had around 120 employees. In addition to processing the admission applications, one of the foundation's main activities is advising on all aspects of studying. In the forty years of its existence, the Foundation and ZVS have sent around seven million notifications. Currently, around 120,000 applications are processed per semester, most of which do not reach the authority until the relevant deadline.

The software for the central allocation of study places was planned and implemented in cooperation with T-Systems and the University Information System (HIS). The interfaces to the universities were to be implemented by the IT division of what was then Hochschul-Informations-System GmbH (HIS).

The foundation has foundation bodies in accordance with the Foundation Act. It is managed by a board of trustees made up of 16 representatives from the federal states and 16 representatives from state and state-recognized universities. The day-to-day business is appointed by a managing director.

The number of applicants has temporarily increased due to the double Abitur class due to the switch to the eight-year grammar school and the elimination of compulsory military service . Therefore, 275,000 additional students are forecasted by 2015.

Allocation of study places for the courses of study medicine, pharmacy, veterinary medicine and dentistry

The Foundation's current allocation ordinance for the nationwide admission-restricted subjects medicine, pharmacy, veterinary medicine (only for the winter semester) and dentistry stipulates that study places are allocated in a ratio of 20 percent after the highest school leavers, 20 percent after the waiting period and 60 percent in the selection process of the universities . In the university selection process, the individual universities determine the selection criteria and decide on admission to the course. The average grade, which must continue to have a significant influence, can be supplemented by the following criteria: individual grades on the certificate, result of a subject-specific study aptitude test (e.g. test for medical courses ), type of vocational training or occupation, result of an interview, others through the respective national law approved criteria, connection of the aforementioned standards. Based on the various selection criteria, ranking lists are drawn up among the applicants for the respective university and the admissions are awarded.

Allocation of study places for courses with local admission restrictions

If the number of applications exceeds the number of places available at a university, the introduction of local admission restrictions (local NC) will be necessary. There are now such admission restrictions for the courses offered at numerous universities. Because of the associated uncertainties for the student applicants, they have increasingly responded in recent years with so-called multiple applications to different universities and several courses. This behavior of the student applicants resulted in a significant increase in applications at the universities concerned. As a result of the multiple applications, significantly more complex and lengthy admission procedures (replacement procedures) have become necessary at the universities in order to actually allocate the available study places, since applicants with several admission offers did not have to give any feedback about unused admissions. In order to coordinate the placement of places in these courses and to avoid multiple applications , the German Rectors' Conference and the federal states jointly designed the dialogue-oriented service procedure in 2012. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has funded the project development and implementation with funds totaling 15 million euros.

The dialogue-oriented service procedure (DosV) consists of four phases, followed by a clearing procedure. By means of data comparison between the participating universities, an effective university and applicant-oriented placement of study places is made possible. By comparing admission offers, lengthy replacement procedures can be avoided. The coordination of the local admission procedures takes place in compliance with the autonomy of the universities and the national legal regulations.

The sociologist Michael Hartmann regards a central award practice as less socially selective.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Treaty on the Allocation of Study Places between the State of Baden-Württemberg, the Free State of Bavaria, the State of Berlin, the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the State of Hesse, the State of Lower Saxony, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the State of Rhineland -Pfalz, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein on the allocation of study places from October 20, 1972
  2. ↑ http://www.geschichte.nrw.de/artikel.php?artikel [id] = 336 & lkz = de
  3. ↑ Udo Feist: "Well, I found it very pleasant with the ZVS" , Deutschlandfunk , April 30, 2010
  4. ↑ Jan-Martin Wiarda: Endless drama about the software for university place allocation: How could so much go wrong? And who is to blame? , ZEIT ONLINE , October 20, 2011
  5. ↑ University allocation chaos - Federal government plans to sell HIS software division , Spiegel Online January 6, 2012
  6. ↑ Abi Eltern, 2010 edition
  7. ↑ Admission chaos continues - system error in the dialog-oriented service procedure , January 6, 2012
  8. ^ Julia Krause: The organized application chaos , Abendblatt.de , 04.01.12
  9. ↑ Manuel J. Hartung: The ZVS is better, interview with the elite researcher Michael Hartmann , DIE ZEIT 39/2004