FAQ Admission

FAQ on admission to the Master's programmes

The Institute of Computer Science of the University of Bonn offers Master's programmes in Computer Science, Cyber Security and (probably starting in October 2026) Artificial Intelligence, and it contributes to the Master's programme for high school teaching. On our website you can find →information about contents, goals, and structure of these programmes.

Below you find answers to frequently asked questions about admission to the Master's programmes in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science and Cyber Security.

On eligibility

I am a Bachelor's student at the Institute of Computer Science or the Mathematical Institute of the University of Bonn. What do I need to do to be admitted?

Please check what modules you need to complete to satisfy the admission requirements.
Familiarize yourself with the application procedure and the deadlines.
If you have not completed your Bachelor's yet, or if your transcript does not show your final grade yet, then get your examination office to certify your expected completion date.
Apply on time. For legal and technical reasons, it is impossible for us to process late applications.
As long as you are still registered as a Bachelor's student, please make sure to re-register for the upcoming semester.
If all requirements are met and you are ranked high enough, you receive an admission letter for the Master's.
Complete your Bachelor's (including the presentation about your graduation project!) before the start of the semester. This is a hard deadline (even if, for example, you or your advisor gets ill) which will be checked several months later: if it is not met, your admission to the Master's programme will effectively be revoked. If you do not finish your Bachelor's on time, please come to our office hours to discuss the situation as soon as possible.
After completing your Bachelor's, send your admission letter to the student registry and ask them to transfer you from the Bachelor's to the Master's programme.

Step 5, your registration as a Bachelor's student, is your back-up plan. If your transfer to the Master's programme is not possible because successful completion of your Bachelor's studies cannot be confirmed on time, then we may still allow you to start taking Master's courses – under certain conditions – provided you are still registered as a student.

If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask them during our office hours.

I am a Bachelor's student from another institute or university. Am I eligible for admission?

Please check here.

What are the GRE requirements for your programme?

A GRE test is not required.

I am still unsure whether I am eligible. Can you check my transcript and tell me if I am eligible?

If you are currently doing your Bachelor's in Europe and want to plan ahead, we can try to have a quick look and we will give you an answer that amounts to "tentatively yes", "probably not", or "we can only say once you have completed your application in the application portal".

If you are doing your Bachelor's outside Europe or if you have completed your Bachelor's already, then, no, sorry, we really need you to provide the necessary information by filling out the application form in the application portal. Due to the high number of applications and the added complexity of applications from different education systems, we cannot afford to check eligibility in e-mail correspondence with individual applicants.

My Bachelor‘s program did not include a Bachelor's thesis. Can I still apply?

As a rule, if you do not have a Bachelor's thesis (or a Master's thesis from another programme), your application will be rejected.

I have X years of work experience. Can I make that count for the eligibility criteria?

Work experience does not help in meeting the eligibility criteria. If you apply for Artificial Intelligence or Cyber Security, your work experience may improve your ranking in the selection process, but your work experience cannot serve as a substitute for the Bachelor's courses that you need to meet the criteria for eligibility.

I did not have much training in X in my degree programme but I learned a lot about X through self study or through training in industry. Can I make that count for the eligibility criteria?

We can only consider knowledge and skills that have been certified by examinations on, at least, Bachelor's level and that are officially recognised as such by the authorities in your country and in Germany. If these examinations were not part of a regular Bachelor's or Master's degree programme, your application has to include all documents and references that are necessary to convince us that these examinations fulfil these requirements.

Are German language skills required?

For our Master's programmes, German skills are not required. Nevertheless, if you know some German, it will make your general life easier. We advise you to take German classes.

I have not completed my Bachelor's yet, but I will do so by the end of the current semester. Can I apply already?

Yes, if it is indeed plausible that you will complete your Bachelor's on time, that is, before the start of the semester for which you are applying. We assume that this is plausible if currently, you do not miss more than 30 ECTS credits, that is, one semester's worth of credits, for your Bachelor's degree. If you are still missing more than the equivalent of 30 ECTS credits for your Bachelor's, we will consider whether this is normal for your programme in the last semester, or whether the number of credits that you still need is similar to what you obtained in each of the previous semesters.

I do not fulfil all requirements for admission. Could I be admitted under the condition that I catch up on some modules from the Bachelor's programme in the first semester?

No, sorry. Our examination regulations only allow one type of conditional admission: admission under the condition that you meet all requirements for admission before the semester starts and that you prove this within four months after the start of the semester. In other words, with conditional admission you can get certainty about admission before you complete, for example, the last chapters of your Bachelor's thesis. Conditional admission also allows some time for your Bachelor's university to issue your certificates. Conditional admission will not enable you to catch up on missing requirements after enrolling in our Master's programme.

I do not fulfil all requirements for admission. Could you offer me a programme of one or two semesters to bridge the gap between my previous studies and your Master's programmes?

If you fulfil the conditions for admission to our Bachelor's programmes or if you are registered as a student at a German university already, you could apply for admission to one of our Bachelor's programmes or to specific modules of those programmes, respectively, so that you can complete the requirements for admission to our Master's programmes. Note that admission to our Bachelor's programmes or to any module of those programmes requires proven fluency in German at C1 level and is generally subject to capacity constraints. We do not recommend that you try to work out a bridging programme by yourself, because there is no guarantee that you will be admitted to the desired Master's programme after that. Ask us for help, but please understand: we only help if you write in German, you send us your transcripts of records, and these convince us that a short bridging programme is realistic and will most likely lead to succesful enrolment in one of our Master's programmes.

I do not fulfil all requirements for admission: I am a few credits short in a specific area. Will I be rejected automatically or can I compensate for this with other achievements?

You will be rejected automatically. Exception: if your Bachelor's thesis has too few credits, we may have a look and try to estimate if we would have accepted it as a sufficiently substantial (12 ECTS credits') thesis in our own Bachelor's programmes. This generally requires that your Bachelor's thesis is finished---or that we know from ample experience with applicants from your Bachelor's programme that Bachelor's theses in this programme always meet our requirements.

On costs

What are the tuition fees?

Tuition is free, but you have to pay a modest fee to contribute in the costs of certain collective services for students, such as public transportation. For more information on the costs of living and studying in Bonn, check out this page of our international office.

Do you offer scolarships for international students?

Please check out this page.

On applying

How can I apply?

Applications must be submitted using the online application portal of the University of Bonn. Please check here for more information. We do not accept applications by mail or e-mail.

I can't find the University of Bonn on Uni-Assist. How can I apply?

We do not work with Uni-Assist. You can apply directly to us.

Do I need a VPD from Uni-Assist?

We do not work with Uni-Assist. You can apply directly to us. You do not need a VPD.

Do I need a statement of comparibility from a German authority such as the ZAB to confirm that my Bachelor's degree is recognised in Germany?

No. We have access to the ZAB database so that we can check whether your degree is recognised. You do not need to have that certified beforehand.

What is the application fee?

There is no application fee.

What documents are required for my application?

Please check here.

I can provide proof that the language of instruction during my Bachelor's studies was English. Will you accept this as proof of my English language skills?

No. You can find the list of accepted proofs here.

What are the application deadlines?

Please check here.

I missed the deadline for reasons beyond my control. Can you make an exception and still consider my application?

If you have filled out your application in the system already but could not formally submit it for some technical reason, please contact us immediately and then we can see if we can solve the problem and/or press the submit button for you. In all other cases: by the applicable laws, we can only consider late applications if we still have places on our programmes left after all applications that were submitted on time have been processed. In practice this does not happen, so, no, sorry, we cannot consider late applications.

Can I apply when some of my documents are not available yet and send them to you later?

Please check out this list of required documents: It also explains which documents can be submitted later and under what conditions.

I cannot find the Artificial Intelligence / Computer Science / Cyber Security Master's programme in the application portal. Where is it?

Please check the application periods. Outside the indicated periods, the application form for the respective programme is not available.

Why do I get an error message when I complete/submit the application form?

Please contact the technical help desk at appsupport@ticket.uni-bonn.de.

I am enrolled in another Master's programme in Germany. How can I change to the University of Bonn?

You should first apply for admission to the first semester, in the same way as any other applicant. The application form will ask you the relevant questions about your current Master's programme and possible entry in a higher semester.

Please do not apply for admission to a higher semester before applying to the first semester. HIgher-semester places are extremely scarce and admission to a higher semester requires a certificate for the transfer of credits. To get such a certificate, you must first go through the application process for the first semester.

After applying

I need my admission letter sooner because of the application deadline for a stipend. Can you decide my application faster?

Unfortunately, that is not possible. Your application is part of a selection process in which you compete with other applicants for a spot on our Master's programmes. Therefore, we cannot speed up the processing of individual applications independent of other applications. We can only do our best to process all applications as fast as possible.

After admission

I was admitted but I need to defer the start of my studies for one or two semesters. How can I do that?

In general you cannot. If the reason for the deferral is that it takes time to obtain your visa, please keep us posted on your progress and we will try to support you with advice on when to enrol, with letters to confirm your admission despite late arrival and/or with priority admission for the next semester as needed.

Can I get a dormitory room?

There are dormitories run by an organisation affiliated with the university (Studierendenwerk), and we can usually reserve a number of their rooms for our international students. However, they do not have enough rooms for all international students, and shortages vary a lot between semesters. Therefore we can really not estimate the chances that we can get you a room. We strongly recommend that you start looking for (private) accommodation by yourself as soon as you know that you are admitted. The international office of the university has a website with advice on how to find accommodation.

After non-admission

Why did I not gain admission?

Each year we get thousands of applications from students who decide to give it a shot despite not meeting our published criteria for admission. As a result of these numbers, we are generally unable to correspond with you about the reasons for rejection. The most common reasons for rejection are:

Applying too late. Please check the deadlines. If you are not a citizen of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, or Norway and you do not have a Bachelor's from Germany, you must generally apply in the first application period. If you apply in the second period, your application will be rejected.
Bachelor's thesis not submitted. A presentation or a publication is not accepted as a substitute for the actual thesis.
Bachelor's thesis not up to our standards. Note that this does not mean that your final-year project is bad – often it simply means that your university has a different focus and taught you other useful skills than those that we want to see in a Bachelor's thesis.
Not enough credits in algorithm theory (for the Computer Science programme) or not enough credits in IT security (for the Cyber Security programme). Please check the requirements.
Not enough computer science in the prior education.
No accepted proof of sufficient English skills. We do not accept a proof that English was the language of instruction in your Bachelor's as a proof of your English skills.

Can I apply again for the same semester in the second application phase?

No. If your application was rejected in the first application phase for a particular semester, you cannot apply again for the same semester in the second application phase.

Contact

How can I contact the admissions office?

Please contact us by mail at application@informatik.uni-bonn.de. Behind that address is a team of four that who will do their best to answer your mail as soon as possible. If you have any questions about admission, please refrain from sending mails to other addresses in the Institute of Computer Science: they will not be able to help you or they will simply forward your mail to application@informatik.uni-bonn.de.

Currently, icloud does not seem to accept any mails from us, and therefore we do not waste time on trying to send answers to icloud addresses. So if you have been using an icloud mail address, please contact us with another mail address so that we can reach you.

We cannot be reached by phone.

Why am I not getting an answer to my mail?

Please note that the admissions office is not staffed every day of the week. We try to answer mails to application@informatik.uni-bonn.de within ten days. Please check this FAQ page as well as our web page on conditions and procedures for admission: if the answer is on these pages, we might decide not to answer your mail.