Schule in Deutschland verstehen (englische Sprachfassung)

15.3
Trust is good, but verify! Not every higher education
institution is accredited by the state.
With more than 10,000 courses of study, there are a few schools that are
not accredited by the state. If a tertiary education institution is not accre d-
ited by the state, it can be difficult upon getting a degree to find a job, as
many employers will not recognise it.
Some education providers call themselves an Akademie
(academy). This is not a legally protected term,
unlike the terms Universität (university) or Hochschule
(higher education institution). There are highly
prestigious academies in Germany with accredited
degree programmes, however, there are also academies
that are not accredited by the state. Therefore,
it is worth double-checking!
15.4
The Abitur secures the right to a place at university;
however, there is the numerus clausus.
Generally, in Germany every Gymnasium graduate has the right to study at
a university/higher education institution. However, some courses of study
are very popular. Many applicants vie for limited space in degree programmes
and universities can’t accept all of them.
Therefore, universities rank applicants according to their grade point
average. This process is called numerus clausus or NC. This is a Latin term
and means closing number.
For example: A university has 600 spaces available for biology students.
The 600 applicants with the best marks/grades reported in their Abitur will
be accepted into the programme. Now for our example let us say that the
grade point average of the 600 applicants that were accepted into the programme
was 1.8. This means that the numerus clausus is 1.8 this year for
this subject. In other words, this means that anyone who has a grade point
average beyond this mark would not be accepted into this programme at
this university in this year. Thus, the numerus clausus may differ each year.
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