Study Guide for Higher Education Institutions

Study Guide Germany is a comprehensive study planning assistant designed to support prospective international students step-by-step on their individual journey to higher education in Germany. Two integrated features help assess whether they are eligible to study in Germany: a check of their prior qualifications and an assessment of their language proficiency. The results guide them in planning their next steps. If needed, Study Guide provides access to digital preparatory courses, allowing prospective students to prepare for subject-specific requirements or improve their language skills from their home country. In addition, Study Guide helps them explore degree programmes that match their qualifications and interests. For each relevant programme, suitable scholarships are displayed. For some programmes, prospective students can write directly to the institution, selecting a topic for their enquiry (e.g. “financing” or “admission requirements”). Study Guide then directs the enquiry to the relevant point of contact at the higher education institution. They can also book a counselling session with the DAAD (only available at selected DAAD locations) and receive tailored, country-specific guidance.

Study Guide brings together all degree programmes offered by higher education institutions from the Higher Education Compass (HSK) and the DAAD database “International Programmes in Germany” (IP) on a single platform. Against this background, it is important that higher education institutions ensure that the information on their degree programmes in both databases is up to date.

Prospective students can use the Study Guide contact form to submit specific, well-structured enquiries to higher education institutions regarding particular degree programmes listed in the HSK. Enquiries, including name, educational background and preferred degree programme, are forwarded directly to the relevant contact address.

With the free AI support for automated replies, higher education institutions can draft standard questions and answers and have them sent automatically around the clock. This reduces the administrative burden and ensures information is provided quickly. The automated replies service is available to all higher education institutions listed in the HSK once it has been activated and set up.

The degree programmes are listed in alphabetical order. You can also apply filters to refine your search according to specific criteria. The free-text search is an exception, as the results are sorted by relevance. You can find more information on this in the FAQ section “Questions regarding data sources and management on Study Guide”.

Currently, Study Guide offers two ways for prospective students to contact German higher education institutions. For degree programmes listed in the HSK, prospective students can use the integrated Study Guide contact form. For more information on the Study Guide contact form, please refer to the question “How does the Study Guide contact form work?”. For degree programmes from the International Programmes, prospective students are shown the relevant higher education institution’s e-mail addresses directly or, in some cases, provided with links to the institution’s contact forms.

Prospective international students can use the integrated Study Guide contact form to reach out to German higher education institutions directly regarding degree programmes listed in the HSK.

In the Study Guide contact form, prospective students first select one of eleven subject areas on which they wish to ask a question, e.g. entry requirements or accommodation. Once submitted, the message – including the student’s name, educational background and preferred degree programme – is forwarded to the higher education institution’s contact address stored in the HSK.

Depending on the subject area, Study Guide uses data from the HSK to determine which contact person at the higher education institution should receive the message: the International Office, the General Student Advisory Service, or a programme-specific contact.

For each subject area which can be selected by prospective students, these addresses are categorised into primary, secondary, and tertiary contacts. This distribution matrix was designed in collaboration with numerous representatives from DAAD-affiliated higher education institutions. For most subject areas, the International Office is contacted first – provided this information is available in the Higher Education Compass (HSK). Otherwise, the second or third e-mail address is used.

These e-mail contacts stored in the HSK can, at the institution’s request, be replaced on Study Guide with institution-specific e-mail addresses. To do this, e-mail addresses are stored for individual or multiple subject areas. If you would like to make use of this option, please contact study-guide@daad.de.

Please also refer to the answer to the question “What topics are covered in the Study Guide contact form?”.

In the Study Guide contact form, prospective students first select one of eleven subject areas for their enquiry to a German higher education institution. Enquiries to higher education institutions can be categorised under the following topics:

• Accommodation
• Admission requirements
• Application
• Course of study
• Financing
• Language skills
• Location and higher education institution
• Other
• Recognition of foreign educational certificates
• Study preparation
• Visa, entering Germany

 

On Study Guide, each higher education institution can individually specify which e-mail address(es) should receive enquiries from prospective students for each subject area. E-mail addresses can be submitted to the Study Guide team as institution-wide contacts for one or more subject areas. Please note that only one e-mail address can be set up per subject area. Please let us know the relevant e-mail address(es) that students can use to get in touch.

Please use the following file, which contains a table of subject areas. In the „Zieladresse/Destination address“ column, you can enter the e-mail address for each topic to which enquiries regarding that topic should be forwarded. This is to ensure that the correct person at the higher education institution is contacted. Please send the completed list back to us at study-guide@daad.de and we will then set up the e-mail address(es) accordingly.

Higher education institutions whose degree programmes are listed in the HRK’s HSK database can receive enquiries from prospective international students about these programmes via the Study Guide contact form. To help higher education institutions manage enquiries more efficiently, Study Guide offers a free service providing automated, AI-supported replies. This allows you to store prepared information for general enquiries from prospective students, which are automatically answered around the clock.

If you have already activated your secure section for institution-specific data, please go directly to “First steps for higher education institutions: setting up and managing automated, AI-supported replies on Study Guide.”

Getting Started: A guide for higher education institutions on how to activate the secure section for institution-specific data for the use of AI-supported automated replies

If the secure section for institution-specific data has not yet been activated on Study Guide for your institution, please first set it up free of charge for the AI-supported automated replies service. To do this, go to the registration page for automated replies and click on the „Start the service now“ button at the top of the page.

In the next step, you will be shown a list of German higher education institutions accredited by the HSK. Select your institution from the list. If your institution is not listed, click on „Read more in our FAQ“ below the drop-down field.

You will then be asked whether your higher education institution already receives enquiries from prospective students via Study Guide. If this is the case, please answer this question with “Yes”. This query is used to determine whether your e-mail address is already stored in our database. If this is not the case, you will be directed to our FAQ and informed that an e-mail address stored in the HSK is required to use the service.

In the next step, enter your higher education institution’s e-mail address in the relevant field. You will then receive an e-mail containing a one-time confirmation code. This e-mail also includes a link to the page where you can enter the code. You will then be directed to the secure section for higher education institutions for managing automated replies on Study Guide. There, you can set up, activate and manage your own response templates or text modules for eleven subject areas.

If you encounter any technical issues when logging in or using the secure section for institution-specific data, please feel free to contact us at study-guide@daad.de.

First steps for higher education institutions: setting up and managing automated, AI-supported replies on Study Guide

In the secure section for institution-specific data of Study Guide, you will see the subject areas from the Study Guide contact form (e.g. admission requirements) that are linked to your e-mail address for activation or editing. Each topic has its own editing area with a text block field for free editing. In this area, you can store standardised replies which prospective international students will automatically receive in response to specific enquiries via the Study Guide contact form. You can find further details on setting up and managing automated replies in your secure section for institution-specific data after logging in successfully.

Each answer consists of a block of text and a heading. To improve readability, formatting options such as bold text and bullet points are available. You can also insert links into the text. An image is required for each topic. If you do not upload your own image, you can select a file from the DAAD image library.

In addition to the relevant topic-related information, you can also fill in a marketing section to showcase your higher education institution. Here, too, you can upload an image or choose one from a library, as well as create one or more text blocks. In terms of content, this is a good place to share information about your institution or its location that is of particular interest to an international audience or that sets your degree programmes apart from the rest.

All texts are provided in two language versions (German and English).

If you need help with maintenance, you can use the Guided Tour. Once you have logged in to edit the automated replies, you can access the Guided Tour at any time by clicking the question mark icon. It provides a clear and concise explanation of how to edit, enable or disable the automated replies.

To simplify the initial setup of an automated reply, the DAAD has integrated ChatGPT’s language model. The AI uses the higher education institution’s website to generate a suggested text for each subject area. Once you have logged in, you can review and edit this suggested text and activate the automated reply. Content is always maintained and updated by the higher education institutions themselves, not by the AI. The AI only supports the initial setup.

For certain topics, the AI may be unable to find any information on the higher education institution’s website. In such cases, no text suggestion can be generated. If you select such a topic for editing, you will be notified accordingly.

You can save a standardised response for each subject area, using the relevant authorised e-mail address for your higher education institution.

If you encounter any technical issues whilst using the secure section for institution-specific data, please feel free to contact us at study-guide@daad.de.

By default, the contact e-mail addresses authorised to receive automated replies from Study Guide are those stored in the HSK. This is usually the e-mail address of the International Office. There are three types of contact addresses from the HSK: those of the International Office, the general student advisory services, and programme-specific contacts. Programme-specific e-mail addresses do not have access authorisation and therefore cannot manage automated replies.

If you would like to provide different e-mail addresses for Study Guide, please contact study-guide@daad.de. For each of the eleven subject areas in the secure section for institution-specific data or in the Study Guide contact form, an authorised e-mail address for the higher education institution can be set up. Existing texts will neither be deleted nor deactivated if the e-mail address(es) are changed; only the access permissions will change.

Higher education institutions can update the contact details stored in the HSK themselves. To do so, please log in to the HSK page for higher education institutions using your login details. The login details for maintaining degree programme information are held by the higher education institutions and are usually managed by the degree programme advisory service or the marketing department. If you cannot find the login details, please contact hochschulkompass@hrk.de.

When an automated reply is active and can be sent to prospective students, the system checks daily whether the links used in the automated reply are still valid. If a link is not accessible, the higher education institution’s registered e-mail address is notified and the automated reply on that topic is deactivated as a precaution. Enquiries on the subject are therefore no longer answered automatically, but are sent directly to the e-mail address on file. In addition to the prospective student’s question, the message also points out that the stored reply currently contains links that are inaccessible. The direct link to the automated replies is also included, so that the authorised person can easily edit and reactivate the reply. If the automated reply is not revised, the higher education institution is notified again after two weeks. In this way, the DAAD aims to prevent prospective students from receiving outdated or no longer valid information. No content review takes place.

The range of degree programmes presented in Study Guide is drawn from two databases. The first is the Higher Education Compass (HSK) maintained by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK). The second comprises degree programmes from the DAAD database „International Programmes in Germany“.

Higher Education Compass (HSK)

The Higher Education Compass is an information portal run by the German Rectors’ Conference. State and state-recognised German higher education institutions publish information on their undergraduate and postgraduate programmes there. All data is provided by the higher education institutions and maintained by their staff. In this way, Study Guide offers a reliable and comprehensive overview of study opportunities in Germany at all times, whilst ensuring that enquiries are forwarded directly to the relevant department within the institution.

DAAD database “International Programmes in Germany” (IP)

The information on international degree programmes is sourced from the DAAD database “International Programmes in Germany”. In this database, German higher education institutions and research organisations publish their internationally oriented programmes – ranging from Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes to language and short courses. These programmes are characterised in particular by English-taught courses, a wide range of support services for international students, and international course content. The database is updated annually and, with its high number of visitors, is one of the most important sources of information for students from all over the world looking for a suitable degree programme in Germany. Study Guide thus offers the opportunity to select Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes that are precisely tailored to the student’s individual circumstances.

The information in the HSK is entered by the higher education institutions themselves and can be updated there at any time of the year. Once a week, Study Guide updates the degree programmes in the German-language version of the HSK. The English translation of the HSK data is produced several times a year on behalf of the DAAD. It is therefore not possible to update the English-language data at short notice. Unfortunately, the HSK does not provide for the inclusion of English links to the degree programmes either.

To keep the information on degree programmes up to date, higher education institutions can log in to the HSK page for higher education institutions using their login details. The login details for updating this information are held by the institutions themselves and are usually managed by the admissions office or the marketing department. If you cannot find your login details, please contact hochschulkompass@hrk.de.

Higher education institutions that have been included in the International Programmes database after meeting certain criteria can manage their course offerings independently in the secure section for higher education institutions in the IP database. The IPs are generally published in English only. Furthermore, the higher education institutions themselves decide which details to include and which fields to leave blank if these are not relevant to the respective degree programme. In addition, Study Guide can only retrieve and display image files for degree programmes that are listed as premium entries in the IPs. Further information on the International Programmes and the admission requirements can also be found here.
If you have any questions, you can also contact our external service provider, Content5, at i-p@content5.de.

Consequently, the descriptions of the degree programmes on Study Guide differ, as the two databases provide information to varying extents and levels of detail, which is why the content cannot be combined into a single, unified view.

To assess a student’s general eligibility to apply, Study Guide draws on the DAAD Admissions Database. This database is maintained in collaboration with uni-assist e.V. and is based on the assessment guidelines issued by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs, which are published in the anabin database of the Central Office for Foreign Education (ZAB). The information serves as a basis for the relevant recognition authorities to decide which foreign school qualifications allow a prospective student to study in Germany. Study Guide offers an initial guide, but does not replace a binding admission assessment.

For every degree programme listed on Study Guide, prospective students are shown suitable scholarship programmes. This information is sourced from the DAAD’s scholarship database, which includes both DAAD-funded scholarships and offers from selected funding organisations. Study Guide does not award its own scholarships, but automatically displays suitable scholarship suggestions for the chosen degree programme to prospective students.