Acceptance & admission to IMPRS-HD & Heidelberg University
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Admission for PhD studies involves some bureaucracy. The following steps are involved 1) Acceptance to the IMPRS-HD, 2) Admission to University with 2a) acceptance as PhD student by the Department for Physics and Astronomy, and 2b) enrollment at Heidelberg University. Enrollment 2b) is mandatory for students starting later than April 2018. Students holding another contract with Heidelberg university may apply to get exempted from the requirement of enrollment. |
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1) Acceptance to the IMPRS-HD
No real paper work is necessary for admission at IMPRS-HD. Applicants who applied via the IMPRS-HD application procedure and have been offered a position will be asked formally to join the IMPRS-HD upon arrival. |
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2) Admission at Heidelberg University
Admission/enrollment at Heidelberg university goes in two steps. First step is to register at the Department, resp. the Heidelberg Graduate School for Physics (HGSFP). The signature of the Dean confirms acceptance as doctoral student at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The second step is to register at Heidelberg University and enroll as student.
Note that the Department will ask you to sign that you will help with teaching. The current teaching duty is at least two "Deputate", meaning two courses each with a formal workload of 2 hours of teaching per week per semester. In addition to that your insititute may ask you to do some more teaching.
If you have applied to IMPRS or the Graduate School HGSFP and are accepted as a IMPRS fellow, that implies 1) that your application material has been evaluated already and 2) that registration at the Department has to be done at the secretariat of HGSFP. The office is at: Heidelberg Graduate School for Physics Im Neuenheimer Feld 226, room 02.304 69120 Heidelberg When you go there, you must take with you: 1) the application forms for Graduate School and University, incl. the signatures from you, your supervisor, and (part of) your thesis committee. This link provides an overview from which you could download the forms.
If your documents are not issued in German and English language, you may need certified translations of your documents. The Dean will sign your application form (within about a week). The HGSFP secretariate will then contact you and you could pick up all documents for registration at Heidelberg University. 2b) Enrollment at Heidelberg University The first step is to go to the Graduate Academy - note that they have recently moved to Service Point Im Neuenheimer Feld 370 Have a look to their webpage. For you as IMPRS students who wants to enroll and have been accepted by the Faculty, the next step to do is the step 5 on their webape. They will direct you further, for example to the Akademisches Auslandsamt (as non-German) or to the Local Foreigners’ Office (Ausländerbehoerde). You may get a paper that has to be signed by the Local Foreigners’ Office (Ausländerbehoerde). To complete your enrollment, please hand the signed document back to the to the Akademisches Auslandsamt in order to receive your enrollment certificate. With your enrollment certificate, you have to go back to the Local Foreigners’ Office (Ausländerbehoerdet) to get your residence permit Here are some papers provided by HD university containing more information about their formalities. Look at the checklist for visa application (in German and in English) and how enrollment depends on your visa, and checklists for the health insurance (in German and in English and for a private health insurance). When you go there, you need to take with you the following (but please check their webpage for updates): 1) your original degree certificates & transcripts
When the HGSFP office has already checked your documents (this should be true for most of you), they may accept copies instead of original documents or certified copies. Never give anybody copies, only show it to people.
In order to get enrolled at HD university you must have a valid visa. Unfortunately, you will only get a visa if you are enrolled at university or have a work contract already ... The procedure is therefore that you have to visit the university office and the visa office twice (in most cases). After your first visit to the enrollment office you will receive a preliminary admission certificate (by postal mail), that you have to show to the visa authorities. The will provide you with a form for the university for enrollment. After full enrollment that you have to go to the visa office again to pick up your visa / residence permit. Similarly, we encountered difficulties with the visa authorities for students who are supposed to have a work contract. The contract is issued for the time period of the visa, but the visa is received for the time period of the work contract. If your salary is above 50% of a postdoc salary, you won't be able to get a student visa, and need a Hosting Agreement from your employer. Please calrify these issues as early as possible with your supervisor, and keep IMPRS updated so that we can help if necessary. Even if you don't need a visa, they will first only accept your material for admission, then decide about acceptance and ask you to come again to finialize enrollment. They will tell you which documents to bring (e.g. the health insurance certificate). Note, that we have experienced constant changes in these procedures from each side every year, unfortunately. So, maybe you will encounter a new problem that has not been foreseen by us. Please immediately tell us and we will try to help. But don't worry, in the end nobody was ever rejected from either getting a residence permit or from enrollment. More information on fees for study at Heidelberg University can be found here. |
