The move-up procedure for around 1,700 courses throughout Germany that take part in the allocation procedure of the Foundation for University Admissions (SfH) will be suspended until Tuesday, September 6th. Until then, prospective students will not be able to access the “Hochschulstart” online portal operated by the foundation, which is used for applications.
On behalf of the federal states and universities, the SfH serves as the central allocation office for study places in human medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry and pharmacy and coordinates the nationwide move-up procedure for courses with and without admission at over 160 universities.
The Conference of Ministers of Education ordered the SfH to stop the move-up procedure on September 2nd after there was an admission gap for prospective students in medicine and dentistry at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Almost 300 more people than there are places had been given the go-ahead to study at the Goethe University in these subjects.
The university and Hessian state politics have come under heavy criticism for the calculation error and their handling of the situation, as reported by the “Hessenschau”. At this point in time, it is still unclear whether the interested prospective students whose approval was withdrawn will be able to start studying medicine at another university in the coming winter semester.
The admissions office wants to use the brief suspension of the last round of applications to find “legal and technical solutions” for those affected. Since the applicants can indicate alternative requests at various locations and in a wide variety of subjects, the entire admission procedure for successors controlled by the SfH has to be stopped due to the Frankfurt allocation error.
The procedure is an opportunity for prospective students who have been rejected by their chosen universities to get a place shortly before the start of the semester. Registration for the waiting list has already expired for courses in medicine and pharmacy. The application round for the “Remaining items” started on August 28, 2022 and, as the SfH reports, is expected to end on September 30, 2022.
