When to apply for university in the UK, USA and Germany?

Do you want to study university abroad? The application deadlines may surprise you. Here are some tips on when to apply to universities in the UK, USA, and Germany.

For many people, the most difficult part of applying to study abroad are the formalities that need to be completed, and when it comes to collecting all the relevant information, it is immediately unnecessary to think about it at all. The application process for many universities abroad, however, begins very early and the necessary documents should be prepared at the beginning of the matura exam.

Therefore, to make it easier for all future high school graduates, they will find here all relevant information on recruitment dates for studies in the most frequently chosen countries of the world.

Table of Contents

Study in the UK

Application to study in the UK begins with registration on the UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) website . This portal allows high school students to choose up to five universities in this country.

Registration on the UCAS website consists of: providing your personal data, writing the so-called personal statement, making a fee for accepting the application (the fee is £ 13 if you choose one university or £ 24 if you choose two or more universities to which you want to apply), attach references from school teachers (which must be translated by a sworn translator into English) and entering the predicted high school graduation grades. Students have three deadlines for this:

October 15th (in the year preceding the commencement of studies): for all those applying for medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine and for anyone wishing to apply to the University of Cambridge or the University of Oxford;
January 15 (the same calendar year as the start of studies): this deadline applies to the vast majority of fields of study and universities;
March 24 (same calendar year as commencement of studies): Some art faculties set a later date to give applicants time to compile a portfolio of their work (this is a separate requirement of art academies).

Studies in the United States

The United States offers its potential students three application portals. These are: Common Application, Coalition Application and Universal College Application.

Each of these three pages has a list of all universities that accept applications sent from a specific portal. Some universities – such as Harvard University – accept applications sent through any of the services.

All of them emphasize on their websites that the choice of the website to which the student sends the application – and the student is allowed to choose only one – does not play any role in the recruitment process.

On each online platform, the following information is required for registration: e-mail address and basic personal data (including: date of birth, home address and contact number).

Universities in the United States have different requirements for their applicants, and the recruitment processes vary from one university to another: some schools conduct interviews, others do not; Internet portals only allow an overview of these requirements without having to check everything separately on the websites of individual universities. Applicants from outside the US should bear in mind that US universities do not accept Polish or international baccalaureate.

The student also has a choice when it comes to deadlines. You can apply through the early recruitment process, which requires the submission of an application through a selected website by November 1 (the year preceding the year of commencement of studies). In this case, the candidate receives feedback on further dates and requirements already in December. The recruitment procedure, which is called “normal” in the United States, has its deadline for January 1 (the same calendar year as the start of studies). Responses to applications sent by this deadline should be expected in mid-March.

Study in Germany

Compared to English-speaking countries, enrollment in the Federal Republic of Germany starts a little later. The submission of applications is also carried out via the internet portal, in Germany it is Uni-assist .

The deadline for submitting all documents for people who want to start studying in the winter semester (that is, from September of the same year in which they wrote their high school diploma) is July 15 .

Candidates willing to study in particular fields of study, in which studies begin in the summer semester, must complete the registration of documents by January 15 (the same year as the start of studies).

However, Uni-assist has two additional and very important information related to these deadlines. First of all, it should be remembered that some universities in Germany set earlier dates for specific courses that require additional attention.

Second, the creators of the portal strongly advise submitting a student-prepared application at least 8 weeks before the deadline. Thanks to this, the candidate will receive relatively early information from the University whether his application is missing something and will be able to complete everything without problems and stress – people who send their applications just before the deadline do not have this option.

A complete, fully completed application for each university in Germany consists of:

Secondary school leaving certificate containing grades in ALL subjects taught at school and the matriculation certificate – copies of these documents approved by a notary must be sent in the original language AND in a translation (made by a sworn translator) into German or English.
Language certificates (depending on whether the student applies to the field taught in German or English, he will have to provide a copy of the passed language test approved by a notary public).

Universities accept the following certificates confirming skills in German: