Application for the Master's Program

When completing the online application form in the application portal, please always use the grade and credit point system from the transcript of records issued to you by your university. Do not convert your foreign grades and credit points into German grades and credit points!

Please enter the date of the last examination as the (expected) completion date of your bachelor's degree program. Do not enter the date on which your degree certificate is awarded (which is often much later). So usually, you should enter the date on which you submit(ted) your bachelor's thesis or the date on which you give or gave the final presentation.

In the selection procedure, there are different quota for German/EU/EEA students and foreign students. Therefore we must decide to which group you belong. In most cases, we do not need additional documents. Everybody with a Bachelor's (or higher) from Germany counts as German in the selection procedure. In the absence of any additional documents, you will be counted as a foreigner. If you are to be counted as a German/EU/EEA student but you do/will not have a Bachelor's (or a Master's) from Germany, you must submit additional proof, depending on your situation:

• proof that you are a citizen of an EEA member state (the EEA consists of the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), or
• Abiturzeugnis or European Baccalaureate, or
• proof that you live in Germany and one of your parents is an EEA citizen who has worked in Germany
• proof that you live in Germany and one of your family members is an EEA citizen who works in Germany

Please upload the degree certificates for all Bachelor's and Master's programs that you have completed. If you are almost done with the program, you must upload a proof of the expected completion date. If you are done but you have not received the final certificates yet, you must upload a provisional certificate. These documents should satisfy the following requirements.

Provisional degree certificates: the certificate must state explicitly that you fulfill all requirements for obtaining your degree and the certificate must be issued by the examination office (or a higher office) that is responsible for checking these requirements within your university. A letter by your Bachelor's thesis advisor that you have succesfully defended your thesis is not enough. A transcript of records that shows that you have the required number of credit hours is not enough either, because we cannot verify that that is all you need. If your transcript of records does not contain your current GPA, then we recommend that you try to obtain a provisional degree certificate that certifies your GPA. To be eligible for our Master's programmes, you do not need a certified GPA, but a certified GPA can improve your ranking in the selection process.

Proof of expected completion date: the document must certify that the examinations that you still need to pass (a Bachelor's thesis also counts as an examination) correpond to a study load of at most half a year of full-time studies (30 ECTS credits), and that the opportunity to take all of these examinations before the start of the upcoming semester (that is, by 31 March or 30 September) exists. An assessment of the likelihood that you will actually pass these examinations is not required. The document must be issued by the examination office (or a higher office) that will decide when you have completed the programme. If your transcript of records does not contain your current GPA, then we recommend that you try to obtain a proof of the expected completion date that certifies your GPA. To be eligible for our Master's programmes, you do not need a certified GPA, but a certified GPA can improve your ranking in the selection process. If your transcript of records does not show the credits for your graduation project yet, your proof of expected completion date should state how many credits you will get for it when it is done. Within a few weeks we will publish a form on this website, which your examination office could fill out for this purpose (but your examination office could also use their own format, as long as it satisfies our requirements).

Please include at least:

• a list of all educational, professional and other activities that are relevant for your qualification for our Master's program in reverse chronological order (from now till the end of high school);
• an overview of where you have been living (in which countries) for more than half a year within the past five years, in reverse chronological order (from now until five years ago).

You must always upload your thesis in the original language.

If the thesis is not ready yet and you will be the sole author, then we can instead accept a proposal or an incomplete version. The proposal or the incomplete version should at least describe the scientific questions you aim to answer in your thesis, describe the planned structure of your thesis, and discuss relevant scientific literature in detail in the way in which you will also be doing this in the final document.

If you are completing your thesis at an university in Germany, you may submit a less detailed proposal (for example, just the title page). Nevertheless, we strongly recommend that you submit a detailed proposal---because a good thesis or a good proposal can give you an advantage in the selection procedure.

If you completed (or are completing) your secondary education and your Bachelor's outside Europe, we can accept the following as proof of sufficient English language proficiency:

• an IELTS Academic score of at least 7.0, valid until the start of the upcoming semester;
• a TOEFL score of at least 5.0 (in the new scoring system) or at least 95 (in the old scoring system), valid until the start of the upcoming semester;
• a Cambridge Advanced English certificate (or higher);
• proof of at least three years of secondary or tertiary education in the education system of Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States of America.

In all cases, please simply upload a scan of the certificate. Without a proof of sufficient English proficiency, your application will not be considered. Note that a proof of the language of instruction in your Bachelor's programme does not suffice. Even if your entire bachelor's degree program in, for example, Bangladesh, India, or Pakistan was in English, you must submit a TOEFL, IELTS or CAE certificate.

If you completed (or are completing) your secondary education or your Bachelor's in Europe, we recommend that you submit any certificates that you have and that say something about your English proficiency. We will then check if we can accept your certificates as a proof of sufficient English proficiency and contact you in case additional proof is necessary.

Please enter your letter of motivation in the corresponding text field in the online form (at most 4000 characters). Here is what we are looking for in your letter:

• Please explain briefly why you took the educational and professional career steps as listed in your curriculum vitae and why coming to Bonn would be your next step. Understanding your story helps us to understand how all your documents in your application fit together. Due to the high number of applications, we usually do not have time for further enquiries. Therefore, if your application raises questions, your curriculum vitae and your motivation are the places where we will look for answers.

• Considering our research areas and working groups, please name one or two of our researchers (professors, post-docs, etc.) whom you would eventually like to be your supervisors, and explain why. In case the Examination Board is unsure about your qualifications, this gives us a hint about which professors might be best able to appreciate your work and your ideas, so that we can ask them for their opinion.

• If you already have a Master's degree from Germany, you should explain how another degree from us will, for example, enable you to take on a job that cannot be done by somebody who has only one of these degrees; enable you to expand your academic research; or facilitate your reentry on the job market after taking care of your family for some years. These are circumstances that can give you an advantage in the selection process by law (VergabeVO NRW, Anlage 1). Please try to provide documents that confirm your motivation.

The following documents could help your application:

• Your examiners' assessment of your Bachelor's thesis
• Academic publications in international conferences or journals that have you as the most senior author
• Certificates, reference letters or other documents that confirm the duration of your appointment, the number of hours per week, and the tasks that you accomplished as a software engineer (relevant for the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security programs) or as a tutor/instructor/lecturer (relevant for all programs).
• Certificates or other documents that confirm other relevant achievements outside of your degree program, such as contributions to open-source projects, participation in hackathons or contests etc. (relevant for the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security programs)

You should fill out the form in English or in German.

You can currently also submit degree certificates, transcripts of records, examiners' assessments of the thesis, module descriptions, confirmations of employment and other certificates in Afrikaans, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish with your application. All other documents can be submitted in English, French or German. For documents in other languages, you have to submit the document in the original language and a translation into English, French or German by a certified translator or by your university.

You should always submit the thesis in the original language. If that is not English, French or German, you should also submit a summary in English (see above).

The following documents are not required and not helpful:

• Proof of the language of instruction in your previous degree program. It will not be accepted as a proof of English language proficiency!
• Letters of recommendation---unless they serve as a proof for the duration of your appointment, the number of hours per week, and the tasks that you accomplished as a software developer or as a tutor/instructor.

We first check to which group of applicants you belong (EU/EEA citizens, foreigners, applicants with a prior Master's degree etc.). Next we check whether you have applied within the deadline for your group. Then we check whether you fulfil the admission requirements for the chosen degree programs (possibly subject to completing the final stretch of your Bachelor's) and we compute your score according to the selection criteria for each of these programs (see below). This evaluation is carried out by the Examination Board of the Institute of Computer Science. 

Finally, we rank all applicants that fulfil the admission criteria according to their scores. We make a separate ranking for each of our programs. As soon as we find that you are ranked high enough to be offered a spot on your preferred program, we will remove you from the list for your less preferred programs (in case you applied for them), because in the end, you cannot enrol in multiple of our Master's programmes at the same time.

The whole process is essentially done in three rounds. Please check our page with application deadlines to see when you will hear whether your application has been accepted or rejected. It will be roughly as follows: In the fourth month before the start of the semester, a certain percentage of the places on our program are offered to the highest-ranked foreign students. Next, in the second month before the start of the semester, places are offered to the highest-ranked applicants from the EU/EEA and to the highest-ranked applicants for a second Master's degree. Third, if any places are left, we will offer them to further foreign students.

The are various selection criteria. For each of them you can get between 0 and 10 points, which are multiplied with a weight factor that depends on the program you are applying for.

For the Artificial Intelligence program, the ranking criteria, with weights in parentheses, are:

• good GPA for your Bachelor's (2)
• good grades for modules on computer graphics, vision, audio or sensing (1)
• good grades for modules on artificial intelligence (1)
• good grades for additional advanced modules on mathematics (2)
• professional experience in software development (2)
• academic manuscripts (thesis, publications) (3)
• subject-related extracurricular activities (2)
• subject-related experience in teaching (1)

For the Computer Science program, the ranking criteria are:

• good GPA for your Bachelor's (1)
• good grades in additional advanced modules on algorithms theory or complexity theory (2)
• good grades in modules on computer graphics, vision, audio or sensing (2)
• good grades in modules on artificial intelligence (1)
• good grades in additional advanced modules on mathematics (2)
• academic manuscripts (thesis, publications) (1)
• subject-related experience in teaching (1)

For the Cyber Security program, the ranking criteria are:

• good GPA for your Bachelor's (3)
• good grades in additional advanced modules on IT security (3)
• good grades in modules on artificial intelligence (2)
• good grades in additional advanced modules on mathematics (2)
• good grades in advanced modules on computer systems (2)
• professional experience in software development (2)
• academic manuscripts (thesis, publications) (1)
• subject-related extracurricular activities (1)
• subject-related experience in teaching (1)

Note that only good grades (better than 2,5 in the German system) bring in any points, and only modules that go beyond the minimum requirements for the program are considered for points. More details about the ranking system can be found in the Examination Regulations. For applications for a second Master's degree in Germany, a different ranking system applies, based on the GPA for your first Master's and the motivation for your second Master's.

Your application status in the application portal can be:

• Received: we have not really started processing your application yet;
• In progress: we have started processing your application;
• Excluded: your application was rejected because of inconsistencies, missing documents, missing qualifications, or late submission. Your application also gets this status if it is not entirely clear whether you are eligible, but it is clear that you would not be ranked high enough for admission.
• Valid: you are eligible for the program, but we do not know if we can give you admission yet. If you still have this status more than two weeks after decisions were due and you have not heard from us, please feel free to ask us for an update.
• Rejected: you are eligible for the programme but you are not ranked high enough for admission.
• Admission offered: you are offered admission. Once you get this status, you will receive your admission letter in the admissions portal within a couple of days. Note that admission may be conditional (see below). 

Wenn all requirements have been met and a place is available for you, you will receive a letter of admission with further information on how to enrol.

The letter of admission is only valid for the semester for which you have applied. If you cannot arrive in time to start your studies in this semester, you can secure your place on the programme by enrolling remotely already. Note, however, that we cannot offer sufficient options to take part in classes remotely, you cannot take exams remotely, and being enrolled comes with costs for health insurance and student services. Alternatively, you can reapply for the next semester. In that case, in general you will have to be ranked against the other applicants for the next semester and therefore, we cannot predict whether you would be admitted again.

If you cannot arrive in time because you cannot get an appointment for obtaining a visa on time, please keep us posted on your progress. We can then 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.

Under certain circumstances It is possible to get admission before you meet all requirements---for example, it is possible to get admission before you have completed your Bachelor's. Note that in that case, you still have to make sure that you fulfil all requirements before the semester starts. So the conditional admission does not really give you more time to fulfil the requirements; it only gives you more time to prove that in hindsight. 

If you enrol in our Master's programme with conditional admission, then you have to prove within four months after the start of the semester that you did in fact manage to fulfil all requirements before the start of the semester. For example, you would have to submit a final or provisional degree certificate with a graduation date that lies before the begining of the semester. If you do not provide the required certificate, you will be expelled from the Master's programme.

Note that retroactive expulsion tends to cause more trouble than postponed enrolment. Therefore, if you get conditional admission and you find that you do not manage to fulfil all requirements before the start of the semester, please refrain from enrolling and contact us for advice on how to proceed.