FAQs about the ap­ti­tu­de tests and au­di­tions

The apti­tu­de tests for our de­gree pro­grams are tail­o­red spe­ci­fi­cal­ly to each pro­gram. Plea­se re­fer to the apti­tu­de test re­gu­la­ti­ons and the re­le­vant de­gree pro­gram page for more in­for­ma­ti­on. The­re you will find de­tails about the exam com­pon­ents you must take and pass.

On this page, you’ll find fre­quent­ly as­ked ques­ti­ons and ans­wers re­gar­ding the ent­rance exams for our mu­sic pro­grams.

Exams for our mu­sic pro­grams are held du­ring the so-cal­led apti­tu­de test week. The apti­tu­de test week at the end of Ja­nu­ary is for ad­mis­si­on to the sum­mer se­mes­ter, and the apti­tu­de test week at the be­gin­ning of June is for ad­mis­si­on to the win­ter se­mes­ter. You can al­ways find the exact dates here.

Ap­pli­cants ty­pi­cal­ly ar­ri­ve at the uni­ver­si­ty in the mor­ning (de­pen­ding on their in­vi­ta­ti­on) and com­ple­te the re­qui­red parts of their exam—so­me­times in a sin­gle day, and so­me­times over se­ve­ral days with mul­ti­ple ap­point­ments. This me­ans you should de­fi­ni­te­ly plan for some wai­ting time du­ring the day. Our cam­pus cour­ty­ard, the ca­fe­te­ria, or ne­ar­by ca­fés are gre­at places to hang out with other ap­pli­cants.

Any au­di­tion can be ner­ve-wrack­ing. Be­low is a de­scrip­ti­on of a “ty­pi­cal” exam day to help you prepa­re for the pro­cess.

Be­fo­re the ent­rance exam, you’ll re­cei­ve an in­vi­ta­ti­on from the Stu­dent Af­fairs Of­fice with your exam dates. You should ar­ri­ve at the uni­ver­si­ty at least one hour be­fo­re your first exam. Staff from the Stu­dent Af­fairs Of­fice will be wai­ting for you in the lob­by and will in­form you of your exact exam time slot. Af­ter pas­sing your exam, you can then check in with the staff in the lob­by aga­in and be as­si­gned your next exam date (only if you still have other exam sec­tions to take).

When you check-in for your exam the staff of the Of­fice of Stu­dent Af­fairs will as­sign you a room so that you can warm-up and prepa­re for the exam. You can use this room up to 30 mi­nu­tes be­fo­re your exam.

Once the warm-up pe­ri­od has en­ded, the ex­ami­ners will be ex­pec­ting you. The­r­e­fo­re, plea­se go to your exam room on time and wait out­side the door. The ex­ami­ners will let you in. At the very be­gin­ning of the exam, you will be as­ked whe­ther you feel re­a­dy to take the exam. If you do, the exam will be­gin. It is up to the exam com­mit­tee to de­ci­de whe­ther you may choo­se the or­der of your pre­pa­red pie­ces. Of­ten the com­mis­si­on will let you choo­se the first pie­ce, they fol­lo­wing pie­ces are then cho­sen by the com­mis­si­on.

Don’t worry if the ex­ami­ners ask you to stop in the midd­le of a pie­ce or only want to hear a spe­ci­fic ex­cerpt from your re­per­toire—the exam time is li­mi­t­ed, so it’s not al­ways pos­si­ble to hear ever­y­thing.

Af­ter­ward, the com­mit­tee will ask you to step out­side so they can de­li­be­ra­te. You’ll usual­ly find out im­me­dia­te­ly af­ter the exam whe­ther you’ve pas­sed.

If you have any ques­ti­ons du­ring the day, the staff in the lob­by is al­ways hap­py to help!

On your exam day(s), we will as­sign you a prac­ti­ce room on cam­pus for each re­spec­ti­ve exam (ex­cept for writ­ten exams). This gi­ves you the op­por­tu­ni­ty to warm up for up to 30 mi­nu­tes be­fo­re the exam. Un­fort­u­n­a­te­ly, we are unable to pro­vi­de any ad­di­tio­nal prac­ti­ce rooms for ap­pli­cants.

The­re is no dress code for the apti­tu­de tests—just wear wha­te­ver makes you feel com­for­ta­ble.

Un­fort­u­n­a­te­ly, no. You must keep an eye on your lug­ga­ge and in­stru­ment yours­elf while you are on cam­pus.

Only en­rol­led stu­dents may bor­row items from our li­bra­ry. The­r­e­fo­re, plea­se be sure to bring your sheet mu­sic with you. In case of an emer­gen­cy we will glad­ly try to help.

Du­ring the apti­tu­de test you will find our full-time and our stu­dent staff mem­bers of the Stu­dent Ser­vices Of­fice in the in the lob­by, usual­ly from 7 am to 5 pm. We are here to help you!

All ap­pli­cants for an un­der­gra­dua­te mu­sic pro­gram must com­ple­te the full apti­tu­de exam (ma­jor and all re­qui­red sub­jects) to de­mons­tra­te their apti­tu­de for the cho­sen pro­gram. 

You may ap­p­ly for an ex­emp­ti­on from this re­qui­re­ment if you have com­ple­ted all cour­se­work in the re­le­vant sub­ject or pro­gram com­po­nent at a re­co­gni­zed in­sti­tu­ti­on of hig­her edu­ca­ti­on as part of pre­vious stu­dies. In such ca­ses, the­re must be no si­gni­fi­cant dif­fe­rence bet­ween the com­pe­ten­ci­es you have ac­qui­red and tho­se you are ex­pec­ted to ac­qui­re. You must pro­vi­de ap­pro­pria­te do­cu­men­ta­ti­on to sub­stan­tia­te this. The de­cis­i­on on whe­ther cre­dits will be re­co­gni­zed rests with the HfMDK.

Pas­sing an apti­tu­de test for the same sub­ject in an­o­ther city does not ex­empt you from ta­king part in all re­le­vant exam parts with us. 

If you meet the abo­ve-sta­ted re­qui­re­ments, this is how it works:

Du­ring your on­line ap­pli­ca­ti­on you need to uploa­ded a tran­script of re­cords. The aca­de­mic tran­script must cle­ar­ly show that the sub­ject for which you are see­king cre­dit has been com­ple­ted and that no fur­ther cour­se­work is sche­du­led for sub­se­quent se­mes­ters. Plea­se sup­ple­ment the tran­script of re­cords with a stu­dy plan, if ne­ces­sa­ry, and send it tog­e­ther with your ap­pli­ca­ti­on to stu­die­ren­den­se­kre­ta­ri­at@orga.hfmdk-frank­furt.de, no la­ter than four weeks be­fo­re the first day of the ent­rance exam week.

Du­ring and af­ter the apti­tu­te test week, we en­ter each exam re­sult bit by bit into our ap­pli­ca­ti­on plat­form. The­re you can check the re­sults and the sta­tus of your ap­pli­ca­ti­on.

In the fol­lo­wing weeks the uni­ver­si­ty will send you an of­fi­ci­al no­ti­fi­ca­ti­on let­ting you know whe­ther you have been ac­cep­t­ed or, un­fort­u­n­a­te­ly, not ac­cep­t­ed. The pro­ces­sing time de­pends, among other things, on the num­ber of ap­pli­cants—so we can­not pro­vi­de exact time frames. Ho­we­ver, we al­ways stri­ve to in­form you as soon as pos­si­ble.