What can I do if I lost my education documents?

The high school diploma is a very important document when you apply to a university. But, if some of your documents are missing or incomplete and you cannot prove your education level, there are several ways to verify your previous qualifications.

Each German state (Bundesland) and university has different rules regarding this issue. So you should always first ask the International Office at the university you are interested in to tell you what your options are. You can find contact data of all international offices on the DAAD website.

Some ways in which you can prove your education level are:

• The own Plausibilität examination from the university (can be a written or oral case-by-case examination, but is not very common)

• Entrance examination and/or qualification assessment examination (Feststellungsprüfung)

• Affirmation in lieu of oath (see an example of this from the University of Aachen here)

• TestAS in certain cases

• uni-assist self-disclosure form (Selbstauskunftsbogen)