Frequently Asked Questions

At the time of application letters of reference are not required.  We may contact the supervisor(s) of shortlisted candidates.

The program language is English throughout. Proficiency in English is therefore required. A formal proof of competence in English (IELTS, CPE or TOEFL) is recommended but not mandatory.

Although we do not have a strict age limit, students need to be studying a Bachelor or Master degree, which means that students are normally relatively young.

The summer school does not charge an application fee.

Please upload your enrolment certificate and transcript of studies and/or exam results for the last years of your course.  You will also need to upload a proof of enrolment for the next academic year. If this is not possible, you should upload a personal statement with the programmes that you have/will apply for. A CV or cover letter are not required.

All uploaded documents that are not in English or German should have a translation attached.  The translation can be done by the applicant.

Some universities are unable to provide an enrolment certificate for the spring/summer semester at the time of application. Please therefore upload your present enrolment certificate and note in the application that the new certificate will be available later.  Note that if a position is offered a valid certificate will have to be produced.

If you are in the final year of a bachelor study and you intend to graduate before 1 July you are not eligible for the summer school, unless you can show that you will enrol in a Master degree in September.

If you are in the final year of a Master study and you intend to graduate before 1 July you are not eligible for the summer school.  In this case you may be interested in our PhD programme.

Please check out the websites of the group leaders that are offering positions.  If after this you find a particular group or groups interesting you are free to write directly to the group leader for further information on the project.

No extra confirmation is sent when the application is submitted.  All applicants will be acknowledged after the deadline expiration and the results should be published by 5 March.  ALL applicants will recieve a notification if their application has been successful or not.

Some PDF documents may have an encoding or signature certification which interferes with saving the document in our system.  Therefore before trying to upload please ensure that the PDF is in the correct format or rescan.  If all else fails you may contact the administrator who may be able to upload the documents for you.

Most likely one of the documents you uploaded is not a pdf or bigger than 1 MB. The difficulty may also lie with the security settings of the pdf, which is often the case with certificates. Please make sure the pdf you upload can be opened.

No, the summer school course is intended for undergraduate and Master students only.

Unfortunately the dates for the school are fixed and participants must attend the whole school without exception.