I found a study abroad program from Freiburg that has English instruction, but didn’t realize that they entire program was taught in English. Yes, I too thought Freiburg was a perfect match! It certainly checks all of the boxes!
“Yes, I too thought Freiburg was a perfect match! It certainly checks all of the boxes!”
Does it?
- It's your typical German-style campus with buildings spread around the city.
- With about 25,000 students, you can forget about close interaction with profs and "small LAC feel".
- There are nowhere near enough dorms for all the students. Many students live in shared apartments and other non- school housing arrangements. Finding decent housing can be a real hassle in Freiburg, due to the large number of students looking for a place.
- There is a 1500 Euro tuition fee per semester for non-EU students.
@Defensor , read the program’s website, small classes and the recreation of a “small LAC feel” are the program’s raison d’etre,
While the lack of a dedicated residential option may fall short of the LAC atmosphere a student might expect in the US and accommodation may at some point become a concern, note that the university offers so called “service packages” for international students which may be booked one semester at a time.
https://www.swfr.de/en/residence/student-residence/service-package-for-international-students/
For a US student who wants English language classes in order to not fall behind academically, but wants to also improve his language skills and get to know locals, being housed in a dorm with some other international and lots of local students may be considered a feature, not a bug. And while he may at some point be required or even willing to find his own housing in a competitive market, he’ll manage - he’s a college student, not a baby,
OP, keep us posted!
I have identified Freiburg, Jacobs, and Leuphana as three schools that match my son’s needs. Jacobs stated that all of their undergraduate programs are taught in English; surprising to me. Freiburg only leaves 16 spots available for international students, Jacobs admissions requirements are American in approach, as is their tuition costs, and I don’t have much information on Leuphana yet.
Again, environmental studies is my my son’s focus. Does anyone have an opinion on these three schools? I’m not versed on the difference between private and public universities in Germany, other than cost. Is one school more respected in regards to graduate schools?
Private schools are a total niche market in Germany, catering almost exclusively either to German business management students or international students in the liberal arts type programs you’ve seen. Outside of those very specific niches, private vs public is not really a useful dichotomy. Nor is the reputation of a school as such a useful criterion, since most are still either open enrolment or auto admit. Freiburg U as such will have Instant name recognition, but hardly anyone will have heard of the niche program your son is interested in and that goes for the whole of Jacobs. Have to look at the Leuphana program. In Germany it’s the large public STEM programs who will have a reputation of having weeded out the weak students and turning out strong graduates, and some art and music schools which actually have an application process that you’d recognise as one. School reputation is not really a currency the way you know it.
These are three very different options but different on a continuum.
Freiburg U, as traditional German as it gets. Huge, ancient, impersonal but exacting, attended by students in dorms, students in shared apartments, students living alone or shacking up with significant others, students living with parents in the city, students commuting in from the surrounding countryside, none of whom will feel that they are not the “real” community the university is supposed to serve, Historic city with a great nightlife students everywhere, but also regular industry and commerce, not a college “town”.
The program you’re looking at a tiny niche offering for international students, modelled on the American Higher Ed system, but with the option of using the huge well oiled public reputable machine around you.
Leuphana, also public, a former teachers college that decided to reinvent itself, superimposing a (German language) liberal arts model on to the traditional subject based European model, adding a few English language subjects for the international market.
And Jacobs, an private, international university whose location in Germany is more or less coincidental to their programs, modelled almost on the American system, fully English speaking, fully niche.
These are all experiments in various stages of being conducted, the success of which is mainly predicated on the people actually taking parts, both teaching and attending How well do the teachers actually speak English? What about the students,?
Where are they from, what attitudes and mindsets shaped by their previous educational experiences, do they bring?
Frankly, I’d visit every one,
Tigerle, your responses bring a few questions to mind: first, you mentioned open enrollment. Does that mean with good grades, my son shouldn’t be concerned with being denied enrollment? Second, in a previous response to Defensor, you stated that Freiburg asserts that they have a LAC feel. True? Lastly, are you familiar with the all English environmental science program at Freiburg? It’s limited to 80 students, with only 20% reserved for international students.
Open enrolment: the default enrolment for students with standardised German college prep qualifications (depending on German home state, between 20 and 40 percent of the age cohort, never applied for US qualifications), for universities/subjects without capacity problems OR who aren’t trying to tap into new markets by emulating US higher ed, with more or less success. I mentioned it to explain why “reputation” is such a different thing in Germany, since one of the factors it’s based on in the US, selectivity of the student body, historically hasn’t existed at all and is existing now only in patches.
Open enrolment won’t apply to the programs your son is looking at, precisely because they are trying to introduce US style elements. So acceptance rate versus application numbers is what you should to find out.
Being the edu nerd I am, I have tried to research Leuphana a bit more. A teachers college turned into a regional university trying to reinvent itself as an elite international player, skirting the danger of closing a number of times, with a controversial president, but appearing to be stable and established now. I have a hunch that admissions won’t be too hard there, as they aren’t overrun, but it’s only a hunch.
Readin up on niche style sites, it appears that students are generally very happy with the campus and town, but are divided in the academics. Most seem to HATE the US style (the Leuphana Semester), but some of the criticism is about the narrow focus on sustainability and citizenship which might be a environmental studies major’s cup of tea more than most students’. Some like that up to a third of classes must be non major classes, others feel it makes their studies superficial and unfocused and may hurt them applying to German grad programs as compared to counterparts in traditional, subject focused undergrad programs.
The university has made its name on the German map with its sustainability focus which annoys some but again, your kid might enjoy.
Apparently, both “Umweltwissenschaften” and the English language titled environmental studies program are taught in English and are identical with the exception of an obligatory study abroad program for the latter, so he could apply to both.
Frankly, I’d want to sit in a class there, listening to both teachers and students in English. Might be my Southern German arrogance.
Again, just a hunch, but I’d think it’s not a place where highly qualified students would apply. Works in your favour for admissions, of course, but might not make your son happy,
Concerning the LAC feel. It’s undeniably true Freiburg asserts it, lol.
Can they deliver? Not the residential bit (though they can deliver dorm life), not the preppy student population, not the ECs. Academically, maybe, depending on the students - will they be as articulate, engaged, motivated, the way you’d expect I a selective LAC? Can’t tell. Though I’d be much more sanguine about it in the Freiburg program as compared to Leuphana.
At best, expect a tight knit program within a large university, the size limitations of which may be overcome by tapping into the resources of the large university, provided he can get his German up to scratch in time.
I’d call it the best if both worlds. @Defensor might call it a scam. In a way, we can both be right: it might be the closest to an LAC feel you can get in Germany, and it will still be very very far from the LAC feel you’d get in the US.
Can he visit?
Re your last question: I don’t know anything about it, but it appears to be a MSc program only?
Have you seen this?
https://www.ucf.uni-freiburg.de/dateien/events/open-day-april-2019
I have not seen that information. I’ll be sure to look it over. My son is going to Munich next summer for a two week exchange program. My hope is that his host family or teacher can escort him to Freiburg at a minimum. I agree with you. It’s critical that he feels the campus life. I just dropped off my other son to RIT in New York and he enjoyed the campus life. I wonder if it would be pretty easy for a 17 year old who is new to Germany to make his way to Freiburg?
It’s a 4.5 h train trip, with a changeover at Karlsruhe, and the historic university buildings only a few minutes from Freiburg central station. Entirely doable and safe, in fact, a great dress rehearsal! Better still would be taking part for the open house in the spring.
Munich to Lüneburg would be another 5.5 h trip, non stop, Lüneburg to Bremen just over an hour on regional trains. Why not add another few days to his stay, spend the night in youth hostels? Depending on what “summer” means, he might still catch regular classes in July.
The shameful warning, just in case: I dont know your sons ethnicity or appearance, but parts of eastern Germany may be unsafe for a dark skinned young man. Not areas he’d have to touch on this trip.
Note that Jacobs university appears to be in somewhat constant crisis. The finances are …interesting. The school is tuition dependent but wants to run a need blind model so is runung up debts. It would have folded in 2017 if the Jacobs foundation hadnt pledged (diminishing) financial support until 2027, on the condition that the city state of Bremen take over servicing the university’s debts, which Bremen has agreed to. Bremen of course is in debt up to its eyeballs anf only survives because it is propped up by subsidies from the southern states (such as the one in ehich Freiburg is locatec) which are high enough that the subsidies per newly enrolled student inhabitants finance the servicing of the university’s debt. Meanwhile, Jacobs university is cutting programs and staff, while keeping up the pristine plant, while the public university of Bremen is chronically underfunded and basicslly crumbling. They will be able to fudge it until 2027, but its anyones guess how sustainable the situation is politically.
Whereas I can promise you that the university of Freiburg, if maybe not the university college program, will ve around for another 500 years.
@Heckofatrip unsure if you are still looking for information on Italy’s birth right citizenship process. I am very familiar with this. My husband’s family went through this several years ago. Hence, my husband and all three children are now full Italian citizens. The first election my oldest voted in was an Italian national election.
I’ll share the high/low lights. It began with my brother in law, about 15 years ago, whose job (agent for Opera singers) was a struggle because he needed to live/work in Italy for long periods and needed to frequently leave and return because of visa issues. The process required him going to Rome a few times, and it took five years. First he had to establish the blood line (which can be tricky - he couldn’t use a line which included someone who fought in a war against Italy. Both grandfathers were US WWI soldiers, so those bloodlines didn’t work. He was able to trace and document the line through a grandmother who came to the US as a child in the early 1900’s. ) then there was a couple years of paperwork, including filing his birth certificate in his new ‘home town’ in the hills of the Sorrento Penninsula.
Once my BIL obtained the citizenship, his mother, sister and brother (my husband) continued the process for themselves. This was easier as this process was doable within the US because my BIL established the bloodline. All 3 had to deal with the Italian consulate nearest them. The office closest to us is open only part time and the staff person only speaks Italian. Fortunately my H’s Italian was good enough to negotiate this fairly tedious bureaucratic process. That took about 2 years for him to get his citizenship. Then we started the process for our kids. This was quicker, and within about a year all three kids obtained citizenship. Then about six months later they all obtained a passport.
My older children have been able to work in Italy for extended periods since then. As our youngest enters college next year, my hope is that it would benefit him if he wishes to do a semester/summer in the EU potentially outside of the specific programs his university manages. He would need to have a full semester’s AP credit in order to do this, as his credits from study in Europe may not transfer.
None of my kids considered studying in Europe for more than a semester, so none researched options for that.
We hope to live part-time in Italy once our kids are all fully launched. We don’t have a full grasp yet of the implications for me (non citizen), but our weak understanding is that I can apply for citizenship if I establish residency there.
I can’t speak for the process nowadays. For us, it took 8 years for a kid to get citizenship in hand. Perhaps it has become quicker. I do not know if it can be done fully in the Us now. My BIL was required to go to Rome when he did this (poor guy). But we do know that the same woman who worked in our Italian consulate is still there. My husband calls once in a while to understand mailings we receive from them (they automatically send us absentee ballots for elections and referendums).
We feel the time and money was worth it, but if we needed it quickly, it could have been a frustrating nightmare. Nothing was ever quick, and they do everything VERY ‘old school.’
We are often asked why Italy is so liberal in this. Our understanding is that Italy lost almost half of its population at the turn of the 19th century and has continued to have a very low birth rate. So they want Italians to come back! Ireland had the same population loss (somewhat earlier) and I believe had a similar policy for a while, which has since closed. If you have further questions, feel free. Ciao!
Tigerle- again, awesome insight and advice. Is Lunenberg stable compared to jacobs?Seems like I should meet my son at the end of his exchange program and visit Freiburg, if he can’t get there on his own. You are like me, eager to share what you are most passionate about. Maybe you could show us around! lol.
Crypresspat- the last piece of information my wife needs is her great grandfathers birth certificate. His home town claims they can’t find information pertaining to him, so we are attempting to go through the consulate and local church. Other than visiting Scerni, we seem to be at a standstill.
Leuphana appears definitely stable and well established now, and environmental studies appears to be among the most interesting options, because of the intense focus on sustainability of the school (the core, called Leuphana Semester, seems to be all about it, for instance) and the trans disciplinary nature of the program as such, which lends itself better to the experimentation with the major/minor/complimentary studies that is so unusual for a German university (some students complain of too much breadth versus depth, something that probably wouldn’t faze a US student who wanted a LAC in the first place at all).
I’d definitely keep it as an option. (Some students complain about feeling pressured to go vegan, so check with S whether that’s a dealbreaker, lol!)
I’m trying to find out what the chances of admission are for internationals.
So far I find that nonEU candidates (this refers to qualifications, not nationality, so italian citizenship wouldn’t help with this, not that it sounds you’d seek it for that reason alone) are capped at 5%, and admissions are strictly based on the GPA of the university entrance qualifications, whatever that is supposed to mean in an international context in which you have no standardisation whatsoever. As far as the admissions rates for said internationals are concerned, you may just have to phone them up and ask.
The non profit in charge of pre checking for Leuphana is this one, they have information in English:
https://www.uni-assist.de/en/tools/check-university-admission/
I’m sure Jacobs will be around in more or less the same form until 2027, but I wouldn’t take any bets on it after. It need not impact your son’s experience and enjoyment, but might impact the reputation of his degree at some point. Might not matter so much if grad school is definitely in the offing. Current students appear very happy and the academic programs as such well respected. Again, why not keep it as an option? After all going to Germany is an experiment in the first place, if you want tried and true, pick a stateside LAC like Middlebury.
Absolutely, take a tour of the country together, check out the options, let him “feel it” whether Germany is where he wants to be and which differences/uncertainties/drawbacks of the plan he is prepared to accept
OP, are you still looking for information?