Step 4: Notifications
1. Acceptance letter
If you actively accept an offer of admission to Universität Hamburg on hochschulstart.de or are admitted to a degree program due to a coordinated succession rule, an acceptance letter will be uploaded to your STiNE applicant account—you will be notified of this via email. Therefore, check both the email account you provided in your online application and your STiNE applicant account (Dokumente (Documents)) regularly (at least twice a week).
Important information about acceptance letters:
- Starting in August (February for a summer semester), Universität Hamburg issues acceptance letters twice a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The acceptance letters are prepared in the mornings, so if you accept an offer later in the day, you will receive your acceptance letter with the next batch.
- You must enroll within 7 days.
- The 7-day period for enrollment begins when the acceptance letter is posted electronically in your STiNE account. Universität Hamburg sends all acceptance letters electronically. The postal address you provide when you register on hochschulstart.de is only used for communication with hochschulstart.de.
More information on admission is available here.
2. Rejection letters
hochschulstart.de issues the rejection letters AFTER the coordination phase has ended. They will be sent to your user account on hochschulstart.de—you will be notified of this via email.
In the DoSV procedure, rejection letters are issued for 6 different scenarios:
Scenario 1: You did not receive any admission. A rejection letter is issued for the application with the highest priority.
Scenario 2: You are admitted to your highest priority. You only receive an acceptance letter for your highest priority. Rejection letters are not issued for your other applications.
Scenario 3: You actively accept an admission offer. An acceptance letter is issued for the admission offer you have actively accepted. Rejection letters are not issued for your other applications.
Scenario 4: At the end of the coordination phase, you are automatically admitted to your second highest or a lower priority application (passive acceptance). An acceptance letter is only issued for the admission offer with the highest priority; a rejection letter is only issued for applications with a higher priority for which you have not received an offer. Rejection letters are not issued for any applications with a lower priority.
Example: During the coordination phase, you receive an admission offer for a place on the psychology program at Universität Hamburg—your Priority 3—but do not actively accept this offer. As you do not receive an admission offer for your Priorities 1 or 2, you are automatically admitted to Priority 3 at the end of the coordination phase. You will receive rejection letters for Priorities 1 and 2. Rejection letters are not issued for applications with a priority lower than Priority 3.
Scenario 5: Your application is excluded from the application procedure (e.g., for formal reasons). A rejection letter is issued for the excluded application. All other applications are not affected by this exclusion.
Scenario 6: You apply for deferred admission. Notification of deferral is issued for this application. All other applications are excluded from the application procedure and no rejection letters are issued.
As hochschulstart.de is responsible for issuing the rejection letters, Universität Hamburg cannot provide information any sooner or any details.
Information on threshold values
If you receive a rejection letter, see here for the threshold values for the last applicants admitted to DoSV programs in the current admission procedure. The threshold values can only be determined after the coordination phase has ended at the earliest.
3. Enrollment
If you receive an offer for Universität Hamburg via hochschulstart.de and accept this, an acceptance letter will be sent to your STiNE account.
The acceptance letter contains the enrollment application. Complete and sign the enrollment application and return it by post together with the requested proof (where required, with official certification) by the deadline indicated to:
Universität HamburgService für StudierendeTeam Bewerbung und ZulassungAlsterterrasse 120354 Hamburg Germany
Be sure to review the checklist for new students!
By returning the enrollment application and requested proof, you accept the university place and apply to enroll.
More information on enrollment is available here.
Note: See the FAQ for answers to common questions.