Germany: how to check that the university and the programme are real

What you need to do

Two different things need checking, and they are easy to confuse. First, whether the institution exists as a recognised one: that decides whether the degree counts as higher education at all. Second, whether the programme itself is accredited: in Germany programme quality is confirmed by a separate procedure, and it is the individual course that goes through it, not the whole institution.

The order is: the institution in the register, then the programme in the list of programmes, and only then the talk about scholarships, dormitories and moving. The reverse order is what agents live on when they promise "guaranteed admission" to a place that appears in no register at all.

If you are applying for a master's, one more thing is checked separately: whether the German side recognises your own university. The database used for school certificates has a section on foreign institutions.

Where the official answers live

• Hochschulkompass — the list of German higher education institutions and their programmes, kept by the Rectors' Conference.
• The Accreditation Council foundation — the quality assurance body of the federal states, where it is visible which programmes are accredited and until when.
• anabin — the database of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education; its section on foreign institutions answers whether your own degree is recognised in Germany.

How to check that the requirement has not changed

The registers are alive: programmes open and close, accreditation is granted for a period and renewed. So read the entry itself rather than a screenshot of it, and look at the date. If a programme is on the university's website but not in the list, that is a question for the admissions office, not a reason to decide the register is behind.

If an agent sent you the name of a university, look it up in the register yourself, letter by letter: an almost-match means nothing, and similar names are a standard trick.