Step 3—coordination phase for the winter semester (15 July – 24 August)

1. Prioritizing applications

The coordinated succession rules (see 4.) mean that once you are offered admission or are admitted to a degree program, applications with a lower priority are withdrawn from the application procedure. Therefore, we recommend you prioritize your applications according to your study preferences. You can still change your priorities during the coordination phase, but not for applications that have already been withdrawn from the procedure.

2. Ranking lists

During the coordination phase, the universities prepare ranking lists. Universität Hamburg generally transfers its ranking lists to hochschulstart.de towards the end of the last week of July. As soon as the ranking lists have been transferred to hochschulstart.de, you can view your position in the ranking list for the individual degree programs you have applied to on hochschulstart.de.

Rankings

Your rankings are fixed; a cut-off ranking is also determined based on the number of places that Universität Hamburg can award. This indicates the ranking up to which an offer can currently be made. While your rankings remain unchanged, the cut-off ranking for admission offers changes during the coordination phase. Because the cut-off ranking is continuously adjusted during this phase, your chances of admission cannot be reliably predicted from the ranking list—it only provides a rough estimate.

Example: An applicant with a better ranking than you has also applied to another university and accepted the admission offer they received from it. The cut-off ranking will then move down the ranking list 1 place.

We recommend that you review the cut-off ranking on hochschulstart.de regularly during the application phases.

3. Coordination phase (16 July – 24 August)

If your position in the rankings is above the cut-off ranking, you will automatically receive an admission offer on hochschulstart.de.

Note: The coordination phase begins on 16 July, but you will only receive an admission offer once the university has transferred the ranking list for your chosen degree program. As Universität Hamburg transfers its ranking lists for the DoSV programs in last week of July, admission offers for applications to Universität Hamburg are only possible after this time.

4. Coordinated succession rules

Once the ranking lists have been published, you can receive and accept admission offers at any time during the coordination phase. The 3 coordinated succession rules apply.

Note

Applications that have been withdrawn by you or as part of the coordination process do not count as active applications.
The coordinated succession rules apply for all applications submitted via the DoSV portal on hochschulstart.de, regardless of which university you apply to.

Coordinated succession rule 1

If you only have 1 active application and receive an admission offer for this, you will be admitted and an acceptance letter will be issued.

Conditions:

You only have 1 active application.
You are eligible for admission to this degree program (i.e., you are ranked high enough).

Outcome:

You will automatically be admitted to the degree program.

Example: You only apply to Universität Hamburg for the DoSV degree in psychology (BSc) and receive an admission offer for this application. This admission offer will therefore automatically be accepted.

Coordinated succession rule 2

If you apply to several degree programs and receive an admission offer for them all, you will be admitted to the degree program with the highest priority.

Conditions:

You have several active applications.
You have received admission offers for all of your applications.

Outcome:

You will be admitted to the degree program with the highest priority.

Explanation: If you apply to 2 or more degree programs and receive an admission offer for all of them, you will be admitted to the degree program with the highest priority (Priority 1). You will receive an acceptance letter for this application.

Coordinated succession rule 3

If you apply to several degree programs and receive an admission offer for 2 or more—but not all—of them, you will be admitted to the degree program with the highest priority.

Conditions:

You have several active applications.
You have an admission offer for more than 1 application.
You do not have an admission offer for at least 1 application.

Outcome:

Any applications with a lower priority are excluded from the application procedure.

Rankings

5. End of coordination phase (22 to 24 August)

During the coordination phase, the last admission offers will be issued on 24 August.

If no admission has been granted by then, the following situations can arise:

An admission offer for the application with the highest priority could be determined. You will be admitted to this degree program.
Only one admission offer could be identified for a lower priority application. You will receive admission for this degree program and a rejection for the application with the highest priority.
No admission offer could be determined. You will receive a rejection for the application with the highest priority.

The admission notices resulting at the end of the coordination phase will be made available on the following print date (Monday, Wednesday or Friday) on STiNE. The rejection notice will be made available by Stiftung für Hochschulzulassung on 25 August.

Admission offers

If your position in the rankings is above the cut-off ranking, you will automatically receive an admission offer on hochschulstart.de. If you receive an admission offer, you have several options:

A) Accept the admission offer:

When you actively accept an offer, your other applications and admission offers will be withdrawn. This frees up these places for other applicants.

If you receive an admission offer to your preferred university, we recommend you actively accept it immediately.

B) Wait for further admission offers:

Note: You can receive admission offers at any time during the coordination phase. Therefore, we recommend you check your account on hochschulstart.de regularly (at least twice a week).

“Zulassungsangebot aktuell nicht möglich” (Offer currently not possible)

This status means that the University cannot offer you a place at present. Hence you have not received an admission offer for this application yet.

Important note: This is a temporary status during the coordination phase and not a final rejection!

"Zulassung" (Admission)

If you actively accept an offer or are admitted automatically, proceed to Step 4: Notifications.

Note: See the FAQ for answers to common questions.