And those disciplines that don’t have one (e.g. Informatics) have an mandatory Examen after 2 semesters where they sort out the unsuitable candidates.

I find this, and the more informal “second semester from hell” with ultra-hard classes with massive failure rates so inhumane, compared to having competitive admission criteria.

In that model, you let a student take up all the start-up costs and uproot themselves from the other side of the country/continent/world only to throw them to the lions, do zero to help them evolve and thrive, and then kick them out.

Meanwhile, with competitive admissions, you don’t lure people who can’t survive the programme in, you don’t waste their time and money, and you don’t break their spirit. And you have more resources left to spent on the admitted students, so that the first-years get actual mentoring.

I know that I’m very repetitive in this thread, but I have been so disappointed by the universities in both Germany and the Netherlands during my masters for exactly this reason: zero mentorship, no willingness to give master students a chance to be involved in original research. I sorely wished our professors had actual time for us. It was not a great environment for students with ambition.