What should be done when you prepare to apply for a college?
First of all, you need to decide your major. For this, it’s absolutely necessary to get detailed and reliable information. Applicant could know about information about colleges and majors by website ((www.higher-education-compass.de). Next step is to notarize your education certificates and apply for examination (pls see details in the procedure of applying to study in Germany by own expenses).
Usually this should be done in one year or at least half year beforehand so that you could have enough time to do necessary preparations.
Please introduce the general steps for applying universities.
Usually it needs 3 steps:
1. To notarize education certificates and prepare documents according to the requests of APS.
2. Apply for examination.
3. After the examination, you need to send out all the application documents altogether, including filled application form, full-set notarized copy of education certificates and the original copy of examination certificate issued by APS.
Please pay attention to the concrete requests for different majors.
Please introduce the general process and problems for applying the college of applied sciences (FH).
The general process is same with applying compositive universities, you should notice:
1. If necessary you need to contact the college by mail (in German or English) to introduce yourself (including education background), ask for majors introduction, application notice and application form, know about the mail address of “Recruitment Examination Department”.
2. According to the requests of the colleges, send out your application documents (including the verification certificate of verification department and intern certificate). During this process, you should arrange everything as plan and orderly. Please give special attention to the special requests about major mentioned in the mail from school and prepare as early as possible.

Is Certificate of Internship is mandatory for applying FH?
When you apply for the majors like engineering, design and etc., you will be requested to provide effective Certificate of Internship. You should confirm this with the college as early as possible so that you could have enough time to prepare and arrange. If you have no experience of internship, you could consult with the college that if you can do this in vacation after your arrival.
What should be noticed when applying for the major of arts and design?
The major of arts has special requests for the applicant, so you must write to the related colleges to ask for the background materials about this major (one year beforehand), then you should send them your works and other materials of yourself according to their requirement, so that you can avoid to effect the application because less of information.
Once your works pass the pre-select and receive the “Test Notice” from the college, you should apply for visa immediately and go to Germany to attend “Test of Professional Abilities”. If you pass the test and get “ Admission Qualification”, you could officially register in the school if you have eligible language certificate.

What kinds of majors require applicants to attend “Test of Professional Abilities”?
The students who applying for arts (e.g. painting, sculpture), design (e.g. graphic design, industry design), music (e.g. vocality, instrumental music, melodizing, musical instrument making) and sports must attend “Test of Professional Abilities”.
Are there any exceptions for applicants of music, arts and design in the admission qualifications and German language requirements?
The basic requirements are the same with other majors, but the applicants of music, arts and design should provide a certain amount of works to attend pre-selection. The requirement for German language is the same with other majors expect for some special cases.
If the applicants for the majors of music, arts, design and etc have some special talent, German arts colleges and FH design major could matriculate them even if the education background is not enough but the applicant must pass “Genius Student Test”.
About this the colleges of music, arts and design all have their detailed regulations and written materials, you could contact with colleges directly.
I heard that some majors of German colleges have “Quota Limit” in recruiting new students, is it true?
Yes. For some “hot” majors, as there are too many applicants, colleges of federation and states implement “Quota Limit”. Among these quotas, there are a certain percentage specialized for foreign students. The key if you could be matriculated is scores of applicants (college admission test scores + scores in colleges).

Which majors belong to the scale of “Quota Limit?”
The majors which implement “Quota Limit” are decided by federal and colleges according to the accrual situations. The majors which always has this limit are: medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, veterinarian, biology, law, psychology, architecture, enterprise economics / management, food chemistry, home nutriology. Except this, according the current situations, the federal and colleges of states will list some majors as majors of “Quota Limit”, for example, national economy, informatics. The applicants need to know about the detailed regulation of colleges by visiting their website.

What kind of documents must be submitted when applying colleges? Is it necessary to notarize these documents?
Required documents for the students of People’s Republic of China:
1. Diploma of high school (some colleges requires the scores of middle school and high school);

2. Transcript of college admission test (filed in college);
3. Transcript of all courses of all seminars during college; (if you have graduated, you should also submit diploma and degree certificate of college)
The above materials should be the original notarized copy in German or English.
4. Filled application form;
5. Certificate Photo (according to the requests of the college)
6. Certificate or proof of Germany language proficiency;
7. Original copy of recognition certificate of examination office of international students.
Some colleges may require other documents.

Some majors of applied science colleges may require internship certificate.

Therefore, before submit application documents, you must ask for application introduction by mail to international students’ office of relevant colleges or by their websites. 
For those recommended students who do not attend national admission test for colleges, what kind of documents they should provide?
For those recommended students who did not attend national admission test for colleges, they could provide the proof issued by their current colleges and attach the script of high school and colleges and other relevant certificates.

When should the application documents sent to Germany?
Usually the deadline of universities accept admission applications is:
1. Summer seminar: Jan.15th (term begins at mid of Apr.)
2. Winter Seminar: Jul. 15th (term begins at mid of Oct.)
The deadline for FH usually earlier than multiversities, but there is no unified regulation. Please know about the exact application deadline through the website of the schools.
After prepared all documents, you should send them out 2 or 3 months before the deadline. In case it is found that there is any missing document, you still have time to send. Please do not send out incomplete document to avoid effecting your application.

I have some problems when filling in the application form for university, please explain.
1. How to fill major and minor?
When filling this item, you need to make sure what kind of degree you are applying for. If you are applying for Diploma, you only need to fill major; If you are applying for Master, you need to fill two majors or one major and two minors.
2. What’s “c/o” means?
 “c/o” means “borrowed address” or “deliver by somebody”. For example, if your home is located at small cities or countryside, it’s not convenient to receive international mails, in this case, you could borrow the address of relatives or friends who live in big or middle cities so as to receive the mails from the colleges in time.
3. What “Vorbildung” means?
 “Vorbildung” means your diploma before your enrollment in German colleges. You need to fill “the name of high school diploma” and “venue and date of requiring the diploma”; “If you ever attended the national admission test for college”, if answer is “Yes”, you need to fill “National vereinheitlichte Hochschulaufnahmeprüfung (VR China)” after “Bezeichnung”.
4. How to fill the type and scores of the test?
If you have been studies in several colleges, you need to fill one by one; if you only studied in one college, you only need to fill one column. About test types and scores, students need to fill the scores of the last term and average scores of all courses; graduates could fill the scores of graduation test and average scores of all course.
5. When filling “Lebenslauf”, when should be begin with?
You should fill diploma here, from primary school to enrollment in German colleges.

What’s “Coupon Response International”? Where to buy? What if could not get?
 “Coupon Response International” is a kind of “postage certificate” used among member countries of Universal Postal Union, usually you could purchase it in the international post office of big or middle cities. If you could not get, you could explain the reasons to the college and ask to submit when you register. Of course, if possible you could also send German stamps. At present, Chinese students don’t need to send this when submiting enrollment application except for a few colleges.

When I can get enrollment notice? How to apply passport and visa in time?
Usually the schools will send out enrollment notice 8 weeks before the start of the seminar except for preparatory and majors having “Quota Limit”. To save time, you could ask for “Enrollment Application Certificate” from school and fill it, then send it with other documens to school, when you receive the stamped or signed certificate, you could use it to apply for passport. You could only begin to apply for visa through APS when you get the enrollment notice from the school.