Application Requirements and Procedure for the M.Sc. Physics programs

Application periods

For a start in winter semester

• January 1 to May 31 for "Physics (Applied and Engineering Physics)".
  Early application to avoid visa problems: apply by January 15, and be notified mid of March

• April 1 to May 31 for all other Physics Master programs

For a start in summer semester

• September 1 to November 30

The closing dates are absolute deadlines, i. e. the online application has to be completed in TUMonline. All necessary ducuments have to be uploaded by then.

Selection procedure schedule

First stage

The results of the first stage of the aptitude assessment are published approximately eight weeks after the application deadline. To receive early notice when applying for the winter semester you should apply by January 15, uploading all necessary documents.

Second stage

The dates for the interviews will be in August for the winter semester and in March for the summer semester. Individual dates will be arranged with the applicants.

Admission is based on documents uploaded online. Certified copies must be submitted for enrollment only after admission. It is important that all documents relevant for admission are uploaded, otherwise the application is not considered complete. This also applies to TUM-internal applications!

Which documents are necessary in your case will be specified during the online process. Please also consider the information given by TUM Student Admission Office.

In the following some additional information on some of these documents aregiven:

CV

Please provide a curriculum vitae without chronological gaps up to the time of your application at TUM. Please feel free to use the template from the European Union (europass).

Statement of reasons (Motivation letter)

Describe in not more than two pages (400 to 800 words) your reasons for the choice of the desired physics master's program at TUM

Explain why you are suitable for the degree program, paying careful attention to the academic requirements of our Master's programs and the consequences of any substantial differences. You also have to state which reasons led to the choice of the degree program at the TUM (interests, previous knowledge from the Bachelor, desired fields of specialization). You are also expected to name the fields of research you are interested in, connecting them with the possible specialization courses in our program and the scientific work of our research groups. A connection with the chosen degree program must be visible, a general statement about your interest in physics is not sufficient. Pre-university activities are usually not of interest.

Academic Records

You have to hand in your transcript, diploma and degree certificate. If the original language of the documents is other than German or English, you must submit your documents (i) in the original language and (ii) in certified translations into English or German.

You are required to submit the academic records from each university or college you have attended, including the official transcript of records (mark sheets) and evidence of all degrees awarded.

If you are applying before graduation, please send us the official transcript of records together with a list of the courses to be completed by the time of graduation and provide us with your degree certificate as soon as possible, latest one year after starting your studies at TUM (see also the remark at admission in advance).

Curriculum of your Bachelor program

The curriculum contains information about the contents and competences taught in your studies. This can be, for example, the study plan and the corresponding excerpt from the module handbook (a link to the corresponding place on the official website of your university is sufficient). At least the contents and the learning outcomes of your courses should be included, if possible also the workload or teaching hours.

If your university does not provide descriptions in English or German, but only in the local language, you have to translate the descriptions yourself and submit them together with the original descriptions.

International Bachelor's degree?
If your Bachelor's degree is from a non-German university, please fill out the analysis of your curriculum in addition to the official descriptions of all your courses (in the link section you can also refer to the curriculum document).  The curriculum analysis will be used to assess your academic aptitude according to our regulations.

Language certificate

The certificates accepted for German language skills (for German-taught Master programs and applicants which are not native German speakers) and for English language skills for the Master's degree program in Physics (Applied and Engineering Physics) are institutional at TUM.

In addition to these certificates, it will also be accepted if at least 10 ECTS in your underlying Bachelor's degree program were taught and examined in English. This has to be certified by your university.

German language skills in English-taught programs?

Although knowledge of the German language is not relevant for your admission in English-taught programs, the Bavarian State Government requires all international students to acquire at least a basic level of German during their studies (CEFR Level A1 or higher). Therefore, applicants not providing proof of German language skills can only be granted admission on condition to complete one module providing them with integrative knowledge of the German language within the first two semesters of their studies. For this purpose, you may take language German courses before leaving your home country or do so during your studies. The offer of German language courses at TUM is limited to availability of places, please check out regular offer of TUM Language Center.

If you already have German language skills at level A1 or higher, please submit the proof of proficiency together with your application (as an “appendix” to the curriculum vitae).

Special conditions for certain countries

For individual countries, special requirements apply regarding the documents to be submitted.

The academic requirements for admission to a Master's program in physics at TUM are:

• You have completed the TUMonline application in full and on time (uploading all documents relevant to admission).

• You have to hold a Bachelor's degree in physics (or equivalent), which in form and content is comparable to our research-oriented Bachelor in physics. To find out whether your Bachelor's program is sufficient for admission, you need to have taken courses equivalent to the core modules of our Bachelor in physics:

  Subject Group	CP (ECTS)
  Experimental Physics (mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, thermodynamics, atomic physics) Modules PH0001, PH0002, PH0003, PH0004,	34
  Advanced Experimental Physics (nuclear, particle and astrophysics, condensed matter physics) Modules PH0016, PH0019,	10
  Theoretical Physics (analytical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, statistical physics) Modules PH0005, PH0006, PH0007, PH0008,	34
  Fundamentals in Mathematics (linear algebra, analysis) Modules MA9201, MA9202, MA9203, MA9204	32
  Lab Courses Modules PH0009, PH0010, PH0011, PH0030,	21
  Bachelor's Thesis (methods of scientific work)	12

  
  Special attention is paid to the theoretical physics courses, condensed matter physics as well as nuclear and particle physics, which are often not taught in engineering programs as well as in three-year programs in certain countries. The given credit points (CP) may not be compared 1:1, but they are an indicator of the expected depth of knowledge. Please keep in mind that if your undergraduate degree is from a non-German university, you have to fill out an analysis of your curriculum as well as provide official descriptions, as mentioned under the required documents.

  Missing competences are counted according to the credit points which are needed at TUM to obtain these competences. To make up for the missing competences, conditions to the admission will be given (additional courses from our Bachelor program to be passed during the first year of Master studies at TUM). In case the missing competences correspond to more than 30 CP (i.e. the equivalent of a semester), the Bachelor's degree is rated as unsufficient according to the academic regulations (FPSO §36) and the applicant will be rejected.

  When planing your application for one of the Master's degree programs in physics at TUM, it is recommended to consider these academic prerequisites when choosing elective and additional courses during your undergraduate studies!

• You have to pass the aptitude assessment.

If your documents arrived on time and your previous studies fulfill the requirements, you will qualify for the aptitude assessment.

The procedure is divided in two stages:

1. In the first stage the admission board rates the submitted documents on a scale from 0 to 100 points, where 100 points is the best possible result and the following scheme is applied:

   • Starting from 60 points, the points corresponding to the missing competences are subtracted.

   • For every one-tenth of the grade, which is better than 3.0 (German grading system), one point is added (max. 20 points). For the conversion of the grades from different grading systems the "Bavarian formula" is used.
     If a certificate with more than 130 credits (ECTS) is available at the time of application, the assessment will be based on
     the basis of the best graded modules totalling 130 credits. It is the applicant's responsibility to list these in the application (second page of the curricular analysis). If this information is missing, the overall average grade submitted by the applicant will be used.

   • The letter of motivation is graded on a scale from 0 to 20 (maximum value) independently by two members of the committee. The average of these two values is added in points.

   Applicants reaching at least 66 points have passed the selection procedure. The claim to obtain missing competences (admission to the aptitude assessment) is independent of this decision. Applicants reaching less than 55 points will not be accepted to our Master programs in physics.

2. The remaining applicants come to the second stage, which is performed in the form of an interview (ca. 30 minutes). Based on this, our admission board decides if the applicant would be able to successfully complete our Master's degree program. The topics of the interview are your motivation to come to study to our department, physics-related questions within our academic requirements and your understanding of your admission situation.
    

Conditions to the admission

Please consider that extra courses given as conditions to the admission, due to missing competences, have to be passed within one year after starting the Master's degree program at TUM. Given that these courses are taken from our Bachelor's degree program, they are usually taught and examined in German.

In the case that you do not have finished your Bachelor's program or you do not have received your final documents yet, you can get admission when you have reached at least 130 CP in your underlying Bachelor's program (according to a 180 CP Bachelor's degree program). According to the study regulations early admission is possible on reasonable request for students who are enrolled in a Bachelor's degree course which fulfills the admission requirements (see above). You must then prove this Bachelor's degree at the latest two semesters after the start of the Master's program. A request can only be justified if the successful completion of the Bachelor degree is (at least) theoretically possible until the end of the first semester of the Master studies. With an application, the request is considered implicitly made.

In TUMonline, the bachelor's degree documents are among the documents that have to be submitted for enrollment. If you submit the enrollment application without final documents (for example, because you are still waiting for them to be issued), this will be considered an application for provisional enrollment. The subsequent submission deadline for the final documents is then one year, whereby TUM degrees are automatically accounted for internally and do not usually have to be submitted explicitly.

Possible problems

The provisional admission does not guarantee that studying a Bachelor's and a Master's program in parallel is possible. It is your own decision to accept the place of study. Therefore, you take the responsibility to manage possible conflicts.

Starting the Master's program in advance makes sense, when you have already finished the Bachelor's degree, but you did not receive the final documents yet. If you still have to take exams for your Bachelor's degree, it is not recommended to start the Master's programm, especially if you have to take the exams in another university.

An admission to one of our Master's programs can be transfered to a future application for the same program.

When applying for the winter semester, the decision about admission is usually taken eight weeks after the application deadline, i.e. at the end of July. Through our experience, in many countries this is too late to obtain a visa before October. To avoid visa problems, apply by January 15. Your application then will be discussed during the commission meeting in February and you will be notified mid of March (however, not before all your documents are checked by the enrollment office).
Please note that this option is only provided for winter semester applications.