Special Applications: Hardship Cases, Compensation for Disadvantages, Local Dependence, and Preferential Admission

Up to 5% of university places can be allocated through the hardship quota to students for whom a rejection of admission would be particularly difficult.

Hardship applications must be reviewed with severity to prevent the unjustified allocation of university places. Therefore, please carefully consider whether you can submit a justified hardship application. Additionally, please note the list of unjustified applications.

Not every impairment, even if it is perceived as severe, justifies an admission as a hardship case. Rather, you must have such serious health, social, or family reasons that you cannot be expected to wait even one semester for admission, even if particularly strict standards are applied. Therefore, a particularly exceptional situation must exist.

In the following cases, a hardship application can generally be accepted, provided that appropriate proof is available.

In the following cases, a hardship application will generally be unsuccessful unless you can cite further exceptional circumstances in your application.

Therefore, it is not possible to submit a hardship application for the following reasons:

• Financial reasons, for example:

a) You will lose a financing option if the start of your studies is delayed further (e.g., private financing or orphan's allowance).

b) You want to financially support parents, siblings, or other dependents as soon as possible.

c) You are widowed or divorced and want to secure the future livelihood of your dependent children through your studies.

• Family reasons, for example:

a) You are an orphan or half-orphan.

b) You have one or more children.

c) One or more of your family members is ill, severely disabled, or in need of care.

d) You are dependent to study nearby for family reasons.

• You have abandoned your previous studies, for example, for the following reasons:

a) Due to unemployment or poor career prospects.

b) Due to a lack of motivation or aptitude.

c) For reasons of conscience.

• You consider yourself particularly suited for the degree program and the corresponding profession, for example, for the following reasons:

a) You have practical work experiences.

b) You have creditable academic achievements and/or periods.

c) You have completed several years of theoretical work in the field of the desired degree program.

• Reasons related to age, for example:

a) You are already of advanced age.

b) You will exceed an important age limit if you further delay starting your studies (e.g., for admission to preparatory service or civil servant status).

• Other comparable reasons, for example:

a) You have completed a service.

b) You are tied to the place of study because your higher education entrance qualification is regionally restricted.

c) You want to continue a degree program you started abroad.

d) You incurred significant expenses for obtaining a school leaving certificate as an adult (“Zweiter Bildungsweg”).

e) You have been repeatedly rejected for the desired degree program.

There are two possible applications for compensation for disadvantages: one for improving your average grade and the other for improving your waiting time.

You can submit one or both applications if circumstances beyond your control prevented you from achieving a better average grade and/or obtaining your university entrance qualification earlier (e.g., absence from school due to illness). Health, social, or family reasons may be considered. Please carefully consider whether you can submit a justified application for compensation for disadvantages. Please also note the list of unjustified applications.

If your application for “compensation for disadvantages - improving your average grade” is approved, you will participate in the allocation procedure with the better average grade that is stated in the assessment report.

If your application for “compensation for disadvantages - improving your waiting time” is approved, you will participate in the allocation procedure with the possible earlier date for obtaining your university entrance qualification. This may result in a longer waiting period being applicable to your application. Please note: According to the “Hessische Hochschulzulassungsverordnung” (HHZV), a maximum of 7 Semester may be credited as waiting period. If you alrady have this waiting period, this request will not affect your application.

The following table lists cases in which an application for compensation for disadvantages is generally accepted. For an application for “compensation for disadvantages – improvement of the average grade”, cases must have occurred during the last three years before obtaining the university entrance qualification. For an application for compensation for disadvantages – improvement of the waiting time, cases must have occurred during the schooltenure.

Important: You must not only provide proof of the circumstances, but also explain how these circumstances affected your average grade or the time until graduation. To apply for “compensation for disadvantages – improvement of the average grade”, you will, additionally, need to provide your school certificates and an assessment from your school. Therefore, please note the information below.

In the following cases, an application for compensation for disadvantages will generally not be successful:

• Working in the parental household, business, or company during the school tenure without being forced to do so due to an emergency
• Parental divorce/separation
• Parental illness
• Moving of parental household
• Alleged discrimination due to attending a certain type of high school or taking a “Nichtschülerreifeprüfung”
• Alleged discrimination due to taking the “Abitur” in a state with a “Zentralabitur”
• Attending a school with poor facilities or a shortage of teachers
• Claim of being disadvantaged due to unfair assessment
• Illness during the Abitur examination
• Long and time-consuming commute to school
• Participation in an exchange program

• Participation in student administration

Request an assessment from your school as early as possible so that your school can prepare it before the application deadline. Additionally, you must attach all documents on which the school assessment is based, such as certificates and specialist medical reports, to your application.

The school assessment must be written on official school letterhead. It must contain the school's stamp or official seal and be signed by the school principal or another authorized person. It must contain the following:

• A brief description of the student's academic career
• An indication of the circumstances beyond the student’s control that are relevant to any impairment in performance, including their nature and duration; the school must limit itself to proven facts
• An assessment of the extent to which these circumstances have affected the student's academic performance
• An assessment of the higher average grade that would have been expected without the impairments. Note: The requirements for a coherent presentation increase the further the average grade certified in the assessment deviates from the actual average grade achieved

If necessary and possible in the individual case, a school psychologist may be consulted in preparing the assessment.

This special application may be submitted if applicants belong to a group of people receiving support in the public interest and are, therefore, dependent to study nearby.

This particularly includes applicants who belong to a nationally formed Olympic, perspective, supplementary, junior team of a German sports federation of the German Olympic Sports Confederation and are supervised by an Olympic training center.

Applicants who belong to a state-level sports selection team are not eligible to submit this special application.

You need a certificate from the relevant national sports federation.

Service is defined as:

• Military service, civilian service, service in the Federal Border Guard (only for up to three years)
• Voluntary military service
• Federal Voluntary Service
• Service as a development worker
• Voluntary social or ecological year
• Caring for an own child under the age of 18 or caring for a dependent relative for up to three years, but at least six months

You will need your deferment notice (“Rückstellungsbescheid”). This will be automatically made available to you in the FranCa portal when you submit your application for deferment via hochschulstart.de. Please download the derferment notice as soon as it is available.

Additionally, you will need an official proof of your service, stating the type and duration of the service.

If being a caregiver of your own child under the age of 18 is your reason for applying for preferential admission, you will need the child's birth certificate as proof. If being a caregiver of a relative is your reason for applying for preferential admission, you will need proof of recognition as a caregiver by the long-term care insurance fund of the person in need of care.

Submit your special application as part of your application via the online application portal FranCa. Your application must be submitted to the Student Services Center in the correct form and within the deadline by the application deadline.

Remember to include all required documents (e.g., medical reports, school assessments, certificates, etc.).

It is not possible to submit a special application via uni-assist. You may only submit a special application if you have a German university entrance qualification.

You submitted your special application at the very beginning of your application. First, try going back to the beginning of your application in the FranCa portal and deleting the special application. If this is no longer possible, please upload a document with the note "Special application submitted by mistake" in all required fields of the special application. The special application will then be rejected and will no longer have any effect on your overall application. This will not result in any disadvantages for you.

Your special application will be read by the responsible staff in the processing department. All information will be treated confidentially. The documents will be stored until the end of the allocation procedure and then deleted.

For the purpose of processing your application, hochschulstart.de will be informed whether your special application has been accepted. However, no documents or information from your application will be shared.

All special applications are reviewed individually. You can see whether your application has been accepted or rejected in the application portal FranCa. If your application has been rejected, you will usually also find a brief explanation of why your application was rejected. Applications without complete documentation will be rejected in all cases.

If your special application is rejected, you may still be able to obtain a university place based on your general application. Your application will still be considered in the allocation procedure without the special application. You will not be disadvantaged by the rejection of your application, but no special circumstances will be taken into account either – your application will then be treated as if you had not submitted a special application.

Up to 5 percent of available university places can be allocated through the hardship quota. Because hardship applications must be reviewed with severity, it is very rare that there are more approved hardship applications than available university places.

Nevertheless, should the number of approved hardship applications exceed the number of available study places, the severity of the respective hardship cases will be decisive.

The quotas for allocating study places are regulated by the “Hessische Hochschulzulassungsverordnung” (HHZV).