Admissions Chances Calculator

Of all study places, up to 20 % go first into preliminary quotas: hardship cases, second-degree applicants, international applicants, medical corps officers, rural GP and public health quotas. What remains is divided into thirds — but unequally:

• Top-grade quota, 30 %. A pure ranking by your school leaving score, separated by the 16 federal states. That is why the threshold for Hesse and Saarland is regularly higher than for Bavaria or Schleswig-Holstein.
• Additional aptitude quota, 10 %. Your school leaving grade is prohibited here by state treaty. Only the test, vocational training, employment, voluntary service and prizes count. This is the quota for everyone whose certificate is not enough.
• University selection process, 60 %. Each university sets its own mix: school leaving grade plus at least one criterion independent of school grades — in medicine even two, and a subject-specific aptitude test must be included.

You are automatically placed in all three rankings. That is why the calculator works out your chance in each quota individually and combines them into an overall chance at the end.

The top-grade quota does not use the rounded grade but your score on the 900-point scale. 840 points equal exactly a 1.0 — but anyone with a 1.0 on their certificate can be anywhere between 840 and 900 points. It is precisely within those 60 points that the quota is decided.

The conversion formula is: points = 1020 − 180 × grade. A 1.3 is therefore 786 points, a 1.8 is 696 points. If you know your score, set the lower slider directly to it — the result will be considerably more accurate.

The TMS produces a standard value: 100 is the average of all participants, the standard deviation is 10. A standard value of 110 is therefore at approximately percentile rank 84, 120 belongs to the top 2 %.

Almost all universities use the same formula: points = weight × (standard value − 70) ÷ 60. Below 70 you get zero points, from 130 onwards the full amount. Heidelberg and Mannheim use a stricter formula: only what is above 100 counts there — (standard value − 100) ÷ 30. An average result therefore counts for nothing there.

Important for planning: the last regular TMS runs in November 2026, the last HAM-Nat in September 2026. From spring 2027, the TMSnat follows — a fusion of both — but with unlimited retakes. How universities will weight it and how long old results will be recognised is decided by each university individually.

• Vocational training in healthcare. The strongest additional lever. In the aptitude quota at Charité, LMU Munich and in Erlangen, that accounts for 40 % of total points, in Freiburg 24 of 100.
• Employment of at least one year in the trained profession, usually in addition to the training.
• Service of 11 months or more: voluntary social year, ecological year, federal voluntary service, voluntary military service. Heidelberg accepts more than six months.
• Prizes at Jugend forscht at federal level or in the selection competition for an International Olympiad.

Voluntary work with the fire brigade, DLRG, Malteser or THW counts at many locations from two years onwards.

The rural GP quota exists in eleven federal states. It does not run through hochschulstart but through a state authority, with its own deadline usually in spring. The school leaving grade counts for little or nothing there — Baden-Württemberg weights the TMS at 60 %, Bavaria at 50 %. The price: ten years as a GP in an under-served region after specialist training, secured by a contractual penalty of up to 250,000 euros.

The hardship case quota covers up to 2 % of places. Anyone who is recognised is immediately admitted — there is no ranking. Only serious health, family or social circumstances with a specialist medical report are recognised. Motivation, internships or repeated rejections expressly do not count.

For a second degree, a score is calculated from the grade of the first degree (1 to 4 points) and the reason for application (1 to 11 points). Academic reasons score the most.

Deadlines: 15 July for the winter semester, 15 January for the summer semester. Anyone who completed their school leaving exam before 16 January must apply for the winter semester as early as 31 May. Documents are also sent by post in addition.

Location preferences: The old rule of six study locations comes from the ZVS system before 2020 and no longer applies. For medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and pharmacy you can apply to as many locations as you like. The order you set only controls which offer you accept on the deadline day — it does not improve your chances. Individual universities do require a high location preference for certain sub-quotas.

Waiting-list places: If places remain unfilled, there is a coordinated waiting-list process with its own, just three-day registration window — you must actively register for this. At the very end there is a lottery.

The thresholds come from the selection limits that hochschulstart publishes after each process: for medicine from winter semester 2025/26, for dentistry from 2025/26, for veterinary medicine and pharmacy from 2024/25. In pharmacy, thresholds have fallen significantly at several locations since then — the real chance there is likely above the displayed value. Applicant and place numbers come from the Federal Statistical Office.

Where a university does not publish its weighting, the calculator uses a standard profile of school leaving grade, test and additional criteria. Where hochschulstart does not publish an individual figure for a federal state, the threshold is modelled from the published range — such values are marked with ≈ in the table. So that the totals add up, the model is calibrated per programme so that it matches the actual admission rate across the entire applicant pool: roughly one in three medicine applicants receives a place, in dentistry approximately one in seven.

What the calculator cannot do: thresholds vary from semester to semester, admission interviews and motivation letters cannot be calculated in advance, and the composition of the applicant pool changes every year. The result is a reliable guide — not a guarantee and not a forecast in the legal sense.

Nationwide, roughly three applicants compete for every medicine place, in dentistry it is seven. Two thirds of applicants go away empty-handed every year — not because they are unsuitable, but because the places simply do not exist.

The second path leads through European countries: universities without a numerus clausus, with a degree that is automatically recognised in Germany and Switzerland. No waiting semesters, no TMS, starting in the same year. That is exactly what we help you with — from choosing the location to full medical registration.

See all universities without NC · Book a free consultation