03 Entrance exam
If you fulfil all requirements (step 01) and you have successfully submitted your online application (step 02), we will invite you to an exam (step 03).
The entrance exam for all applicants residing in Germany, Austria or Switzerland will be held at the LMU Biocenter. For applicants residing outside of Germany, Austria or Switzerland, we aim to organize an alternative way for you to take the exam, for example by giving you the opportunity to take the exam at a “Goethe-Institut” or other testing center in your or a neighboring country. Please note that the exam in Munich is free of charge, but other testing institutes might charge a fee for proctoring the exam.
The entrance exam for the master’s program starting in the fall of 2023, for candidates within and outside of Germany, in principle will place between March 20 - 22, 2023.
As far as the content of the exam is concerned: The 90 minutes examination will be given in English. It will contain questions about different biological topics regarding the human and molecular biology methods, similar to the online SAT Biology Subject Test. It will consist of multiple-choice questions in the area of “Cell Biology, Stem Cells and Epigenetics”, “Molecular Microbiology and Infection Biology”, “Molecular Oncology”, “Neurosciences” and “Cardiovascular and Lung Research”. The exam questions will be at a bachelor’s level, so any relevant textbook at a bachelor’s level can help you in preparing for the exam. In the following list you can find literature recommendations on each topic.
Recommended textbooks:
- Molecular Cell Biology (eds. Lodish et al)
- Molecular Biology of the Gene (ed. Watson)
- The Human Body (ed. Faller)
- Color Atlas of Human Anatomy
- Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (Bear et al)
- Animal Physiology (Knut Schmidt-Nielsen)
- Physiology and Biochemistry of Prokaryotes (ed. White)
- Biology of Microorganisms (Brock)
- The Biology of Cancer (Robert A. Weinberg)
- The Hallmarks of Cancer, Review, Robert A. Weinberg
After you have taken the entrance exam, a combined score is assigned according to your exam grade (70%) and your grade point average from your bachelor’s degree (30%). You will be invited to an interview (step 04) if your combined score is less than or equal to 2.0 (according to the German grading system with 1 being the best and 4 being the minimum pass grade).