• Registration with personal data
• Information on the professional and extra-curricular motivation for each university of choice
• Information on the extra-curricular qualification:
  o Your role as a representative of the RWTH at the partner university
  o Information on extracurricular qualifications and/or voluntary work

• Tabular resume in German

• Preliminary choice of course (once per university of choice

• Current sheet of grades: 
   - By students in the Bachelor's Program with about 60 CP: 
    - German grade certificate from ZPA or RWTHonline, showing all examination grades with decimal places

• By students on the Master's Program: 
   - Copy of the Bachelor certificate
   - If you have already completed your Master's degree, you will also receive a grade overview in German from the ZPA or RWTHonline, showing all examination grades with decimal places
• Voluntary: Proof(s) of extracurricular engagement/volunteer work (e.g. BeBuddy program)
•  Proof of knowledge of the language of instruction Language certificate (optional): 
• Aachen Foreign Language Certificate
• Placement test from the RWTH Aachen Language Center. Please make sure to make an appointment early on to take the language test.
• Language certificate for a stay abroad from the RWTH Aachen Language Center
• Language certificate from TOEFL, DELE, CAMBRIDGE, ...
• Abitur certificate as proof of English skills:
  • Level A2 is explicitly written on your Abitur certificate or you have successfully completed at least four years of school English
  • Level B1 is explicitly written on your Abitur certificate or you have successfully completed at least five years of school English at Gymnasium or six years at a Gesamtschule
  • Level B2 is explicitly written on your Abitur certificate or you have successfully completed at least seven years of school English
• Abitur certificate as proof of other language skills, such as French, Spanisch, Italian, et cetera
  • Level A2 is explicitly written on your Abitur certificate or you have successfully completed at least two years of the foreign language, having begun the foreign language in the 6th or 8th grade
  • At least three successful years of the foreign language, having begun the foreign language in the 5th grade
  • Level B1 is explicitly written on your Abitur certificate or you have successfully completed at least four years of the foreign language at Gymnasium or five years at a Gesamtschule
  • Level B2 is explicitly written on your Abitur certificate or you have successfully completed at least five years of the foreign language at Gymnasium or six years at a Gesamtschule
• Note: The copy of your Abitur certificate does not need to be notarized.
• Other proof of language skills will only be accepted upon prior agreement from the Faculty's Study Abroad Counselling.

While evaluating your application, points for several criteria will be awarded. Subsequently all applicants will be sorted according to their points. If there are more applicants for one university than available spaces, the best candidates according to the points awarded will be chosen. We reserve the right to reject applicants with especially bad applications.

The individual criteria are:

• Completeness
• Grade of preliminary studies resp. GPA of academic performances so far (Bachelor) resp. GPA of Bachelor Diploma (Master)
• Your application (above all motivation, completeness, optical impression, …)
• Your preliminary choice of course for your study abroad (a recognizable central theme, preparation, preoccupation with the university’s offers, …)
  Curriculum does not mean a completed change of curriculum; this you have to apply for after getting accepted for an ERASMUS place.
• Extra-occupational qualification (e.g. Buddy Program)
• Proof of knowledge of the language of teaching

First of all we would like to encourage you apply to apply to study abroad with ERASMUS irrespective of your GPA. Although we include your GPA in the evaluation of your application, the overall impression we have of you as a person after examining your documents is crucial. The letter of motivation therefore is significantly important – pay attention to formulate your claims to the semester abroad as precisely as possible and show us that you thought about integrating the academic performances from abroad into your local curriculum at RWTH Aachen University. Feel free to embellish your core message which you would like to communicate in your letter of motivation with short episodes about the country and people – the reflection of the respective academic system and the desired course of studies abroad do, however, form the core element of your letter of motivation!

Convince us about yourself through volunteer or extracurricular commitment. No matter whether you are active in a church group, show political commitment in a party, look after international students within BeBuddy, organize group camps for the scouts or work in a student organization – we reward your commitment with special points upon the appropriate confirmation.

Please note: In some cases, we are asked by the partner universities to pay special attention to grades. If, for instance, you wish to go to Imperial College or to a French University, your grades in mathematics and physics should be good to very good. You will not do yourself a favor by applying with “average” grades. 

Your statements reflect your planning status upon submission of your application. It should be thought out so well that it may be implemented for the most part. Due to, for example, changes in course offers this is not always possible. Therefore, you may modify your preliminary course selection on site abroad – in this case, it is necessary to change your learning agreement.

Please view all the information about the partner universities regarding their course offers for guest students with great care. Sometimes e.g. economics classes may not be open to guest students. In this case you will not do yourself a favor by listing exclusively economics classes on your learning agreement. Although many things may be clarified with the coordinators on site (e.g. participation in classes of other departments), for the moment, please regard the facts on the homepages of your possible host university as binding!

The DAAD plans to introduce the obligation to earn 30 ECTS credits per semester (ECTS = European Credit Transfer System). The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering has adopted a university-wide regulation according to which only at least 15 ECTS per semester abroad have to be earned within the framework of ERASMUS. These are ECTS, which are noted on your Learning Agreement and, after completing your study stay at the host university, on your Transcript of Records, or the CP, which is recognised by the RWTH for your study abroad (in the last case additional subjects are not counted).

Please note that ECTS can only be awarded if you have successfully passed the examination. If you achieve less than 15 ECTS, the International Office will initiate a (partial) reclaim of the ERASMUS mobility rate! Please also note that language acquisition is not the aim of the ERASMUS programe - language difficulties will therefore not be accepted as a reason for having earned less than 15 ECTS abroad!

Some partner universities (e.g. France, Switzerland) require you to take courses of e.g. 30 ECTS, regardless of the regulations at RWTH Aachen University. These regulations of the partner university are binding for you. You must take this into account when drawing up your study plan; your study plan should therefore always include 30 ECTS for application.

How classes are assigned ECTS credits is not unified throughout Europe, despite the name. The rule listed above, requiring you to attain 15 ECTS abroad, remains unchanged.

As mentioned earlier, you apply by January 15 or April 15 respectively each year in the Faculty. The faculty evaluates your applications on the basis of an internal ranking and tries to place you at the partner universities according to your preferences. As soon as the selection procedure is completed, you will be informed of the outcome in writing. You will receive feedback by the end of March at the latest.

The Faculty then nominates you at the partner universities. Nevertheless, every student is requested to register also at an early stage as an ERASMUS nominee at the partner university. In most cases, this is a pure formality – your actual application for participation in ERASMUS is already finished at this point. Only at certain partner universities (Imperial College, French universities), will your application again be strictly examined – therefore please pay attention to requests mentioned in the partner universities’ overviews!

We will inform you in detail about the procedures to follow as well as the modalities for the accreditation of academic performances after the nomination.

Please submit a current transcript of records from CampusOffice or the ZPA in German.

No, do not submit a Learning Agreement. Instead, submit the form "Mein Studienvorhaben.“ You only need the Learning Agreement once you have been nominated.

Please always follow the information and directions on our faculty website.

In general, we would ask you to upload your application using the online application form. In case of emergencies (e.g. technical problems with the form), please contact the Study Abroad Advisory Service in a timely manner and find a solution together with us.

You can find numerous experience reports on the MoveOn platform of the International Office.

Yes. The choice is up to you, whether you complete a project or your Bachelor's or Master's thesis while abroad. If you choose the latter, you should directly apply for funding from ERASMUS Internship Funding through Birgit Thun in the International Office, regardless of when our application deadlines are.

Do the applications through the institute count towards my three selected universities that I submit when applying through the faculty?

Yes, applications via institute partnerships are one of three priorities.

Yes, my internship abroad in Europe can also be supported by ERASMUS. The internship must last at least 60 days and must be a compulsory or voluntary part of the study program. The Erasmus+ program can also be used to receive support for theses that have a practical focus and are written at universities or companies in European countries. The monthly scholarship varies between 250 and 370 euros, depending on the cost of living in the target country. Further detailed information on application requirements, funding levels, the application procedure and much more can be found here.

Even if the semester periods are different, the fall or Autumn Term at a partner university corresponds to our winter semester. Accordingly, the Spring Term corresponds to our summer semester. Please note the semester periods of your chosen partner universities before applying for ERASMUS.

No, in this case you will need to prove your language skills in only one of the two languages. Please pay attention to the indicated language level (if no explicit level is given, B1 is required).

Example: If you wish to study at a university in Italy and the following language skills are listed: "Italian (B1) / English": Even if you do not speak Italian at the time of application, or if you do not speak enough Italian at the time of application, you can still apply for this university if you can prove that you have a good command of the English language and if you can find sufficient English language courses. We strongly recommend that you refrain from applying if you find only a few English-language courses at the host university, as courses are occasionally not offered or overlap with other courses. Please bear in mind that you must earn at least 15 ECTS per semester. If you do not reach this target due to a lack of course choice, you will have to repay the ERASMUS scholarship in full or in part.

We will nominate you for the faculty/study program you chose in your application. In retrospect, a change is not possible, or only in very rare circumstances.

Please assume that you have to choose all courses from the chosen faculty/department only. Some universities allow exchange students to choose individual courses at other faculties, but you should not rely on this when applying.

The application formalities for a study stay at our Swiss partner universities (Swiss-European Mobility Programme) are the same as for the ERASMUS programme.

For SEMP we have a separate website for you. If you are interested in a research stay at ETH Zurich, please have a look at our website on this topic and contact us.

The Brexit negotiations between the EU and the UK have not yet been concluded at this current time. Nevertheless, student exchanges with universities in the UK are possible in the academic year 2022/23. No tuition fees will be charged and financial support is also possible during this period. For a short stay of up to six months, no visa is required; for six months or more, you will need a visa.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has set up a website that lists the latest developments. Please keep yourself informed about this at your study counceling and think about possible alternative destination universities.