Request for Improvement of the Average Grade

How to Submit a Request

You can submit a request for improvement of your waiting time as part of your application in the PULS portal. The request must be submitted within the deadlines indicated on the PULS portal homepage (late requests cannot be considered).

After submitting your request in PULS portal, you must:

select the applicable reason(s) for your request (see “Eligible grounds” below),
upload a personal statement, and
provide supporting documentation.

What This Request Is For

In the selection process for admission-restricted programs, your average grade is a key criterion.

If your academic performance was negatively affected by exceptional circumstances beyond your control while earning your university entrance qualification (e.g., Abitur), you may request that this disadvantage be taken into account. If your request is approved, your application will be considered using an adjusted (improved) average grade that reflects your likely performance without those circumstances.

Example: After earning his Abitur in 2024, Kay applies for admission for the winter semester 2024/25. His average grade is 2.3 (on the German scale of 1.0 to 6.0, where 1.0 is best). However, he provides evidence that he was involved in a serious accident in early 2023 and was hospitalized for several months. His school records prior to the accident show an average of 2.0, indicating that he likely would have achieved this grade without the disruption. The accident therefore resulted in a decline of 0.3 points. Kay’s application is assessed using the adjusted grade of 2.0. If the selection threshold for the program is 2.1, he may be admitted. If it is 1.9, he will not be admitted despite the adjustment.

The example shows that providing evidence of the circumstance itself (in this case, hospitalization for several months) is not sufficient. You must also demonstrate how and to what extent this circumstance affected your academic performance and your average grade.

Required Documentation

To support your request, you must upload:

school reports documenting your academic performance over time
a formal school statement (issued by the school, not individual teachers)

The school statement must clearly confirm that your grades were stronger before the relevant circumstance and declined afterward, or that the circumstance directly caused the decline in performance. The school is generally best positioned to assess the impact on your academic performance. Request this statement as early as possible so it can be issued before the application deadline.

The school statement must:

follow the official guidelines (see below)
be signed by the school principal
be supported by all relevant documentation (e.g., school reports, specialist medical reports).

A school statement may only be omitted if the school is unable to provide one (e.g., because you attended the school for too short a period). In this case, you must submit a written confirmation from the school stating that it cannot assess the impact of the circumstance.

If no school statement can be provided, you may alternatively submit an independent expert evaluation at your own expense. The expert must have both a pedagogical qualification (e.g., completion of formal teacher training) and a psychological qualification (e.g., a degree in psychology). Your school’s counseling service may be able to help you identify a suitable expert.

The expert evaluation must:

analyze your academic performance before and after the relevant circumstance
apply established psychological assessment methods relating to intelligence, aptitude, personality, motivation, and resilience, and present the results in a clear and comprehensible way
determine the precise average grade you would likely have achieved without the adverse circumstance.

In addition, you must submit all documents used as the basis for the evaluation (e.g., school reports, specialist medical reports) and the school’s written confirmation that it could not issue a statement.

The expert evaluation must reflect the academic level of a student in the year of graduation. It should therefore generally be prepared in that year. Evaluations prepared later may be accepted if they document your development over time and clearly explain the basis of the expert’s assessment (e.g., prior therapeutic relationship or detailed records). The longer the time gap, the more detailed and well-supported the evaluation must be.

Eligible Grounds for a Request

In the following exemplary cases, a request for improvement of the average grade can generally be approved if circumstances beyond the applicant’s control and directly affecting the applicant prevented them from achieving a better average grade. In addition to the supporting documents listed in parentheses, you must submit certified copies of your school reports, a formal school statement, and a detailed personal statement explaining the circumstances.

Special health-related circumstances
1. Extended absence from school due to illness during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification (specialist medical report)
2. Prolonged serious disability or illness (specialist medical report
3. Other comparable serious health-related reasons (specialist medical report)
4. Pregnancy of the applicant during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification (specialist medical report or child’s birth certificate)
Special economic circumstances (appropriate supporting documentation required)
Special family circumstances
1. Care of the applicant’s own minor children during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification, if no other person was available to provide care (birth certificates of the children together with suitable proof that no other caregivers were available, e.g., confirmation from the social welfare office)
2. Care of dependent relatives in the direct ascending line (e.g., parents, grandparents) or siblings during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification, if no other person was available to provide care (documentation of care level 3 to 5 under the German long-term care system (Social Code XI), or a medical report confirming the need for care)
3. Care of minor siblings living in the same household who were otherwise without adequate care during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification (birth certificates of the siblings)
4. Death of one parent during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification, or death of both parents prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification, provided the applicant was unmarried and under the age of 25 at that time (death certificates of the parents and a declaration of marital status at the time)
5. Multiple school changes during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification due to relocation of the parents (school leaving certificates and official registration certificates of the parents))
6. Other comparable special family circumstances (appropriate supporting documentation required)
Membership in relevant elite sports squads
Applicants who, during the last three years prior to obtaining the university entrance qualification, were members for at least one uninterrupted year of an Olympic squad, perspective squad, supplementary squad, junior squad 1, junior squad 2, or team squad of a national sports federation may claim this circumstance by submitting the following documentation: confirmation from the relevant national sports federation, training plans, records of training camps and competitions, and a school statement.
Other comparable special circumstances (appropriate supporting documentation required)

Ineligible Grounds for a Request

Guidelines for Schools: Writing Statements for Requests Based on Extenuating Circumstances

To ensure that schools apply consistent standards when preparing statements for requests based on extenuating circumstances in the selection process, the following guidelines should be observed:

The decision as to whether the school at which the university entrance qualification was obtained will issue a statement in support of a request based on extenuating circumstances lies with the school administration and is made at its discretion. The school may decline to issue a statement, in particular if the necessary assessments cannot be made due to insufficient knowledge of the student (e.g., if the student attended the school for too short a period).
The school statement, which must be signed by the principal, must include:
a) a brief description of the student’s educational history;
b) a description of the relevant circumstances beyond the student’s control that may have affected performance, including their nature and duration; the school must rely solely on documented facts;
c) a description of how these circumstances affected the student’s performance in individual subjects, based on the assessments of the subject teachers;
d) a clause stating that the statement is intended solely for submission to the University of Potsdam and may be used only for this purpose.
If the school is satisfied that the claimed circumstances beyond the student’s control have affected academic performance, it must, taking into account the student’s overall academic development over time, determine for each relevant subject the range within which a higher grade or point score would likely have been achieved in the absence of those circumstances.
The resulting range for the overall average grade or total score for the university entrance qualification must also be specified.
A statement may rely on general experiential assumptions only where minor differences in performance are being certified.
The greater the certified range of grade or point improvement, the more rigorous and coherent the explanation of the causal relationship must be
Where necessary and feasible, a school psychologist working at or assigned to the school may be consulted in preparing the statement.