How to be sure a university is real: each country's register

What you need to do

Whether a university is real is settled not by impression but by one check: is it in that country's state register of recognised institutions. There is one register, it is official, and the entry either exists or it does not.

This matters more than it looks. A degree from an unrecognised institution is then recognised nowhere: not at home, not in a third country, not by an employer who checks the same register. The check takes minutes; skipping it costs years.

The second thing to do in the same place is to confirm that the register lists not only the institution but the programme at the level you need. A recognised institution may run courses that do not end in a state-recognised degree.

Where the register sits

• Germany — Hochschulkompass, run by the rectors' conference: every recognised institution and its programmes.
• Italy — the state portal Universitaly, which also carries pre-enrolment for international students.
• Poland — the state portal Study in Poland for international candidates.
• Romania — the state portal Study in Romania.

For France that role is played by the state admission procedure: an institution absent from it does not admit international candidates by the general route.

What goes wrong

People check by ranking. A ranking answers «how good», not «does it officially exist». Those are different questions, and the first is pointless before the second.

People trust the university's own site. The site is made by the university, including one that is not in the register. The single document you cannot make yourself is the entry in the state list.

Recognition of the university is confused with recognition of the diploma. These are two independent checks: the university may be recognised at home while your entry qualification does not match by level. Both are done before applying.

People check the main campus and study at a branch. A branch or a partner programme may be listed separately in the register, or not listed at all.

How to check the requirement is still current

Search the register for the exact name in the country's language rather than a translation: a translated name may not be found, and that does not mean the university is absent.

If there is no entry, that is a reason to write to the register and ask, not a reason to decide for yourself: absence can mean a renaming, a merger or a change of legal status.