How to write a Statement of Purpose for a Bachelor's Degree in Germany? A Guide for International Students (2022/23)

Generally speaking, a Statement of Purpose (SOP) is a (mandatory) application document requested by most of the German Universities, where you need to demonstrate your motivation to get into the given study program, a scholarship, a visa etc. and explain why you are the best fit/candidate. To put it differently, it is through the SOP that you can "advertise" yourself in the best possible ways (i.e. showing your strengths, your determination, your qualifications and so on) and make a formal request for placement. The same is true for the rationale behind the Statement of Purpose when it comes to the Bachelor's degree program in Germany.

Do not be confused or surprised if while looking through the different study programs listed in our StudyFinder you find out that some of them do not mention "Statement of Purpose/Motivation Letter", but instead use terms like "Letter of Motivation (LOM)", "Personal Statement" or "Cover Letter". Usually, German Master's programs use these terms interchangeably - so do not worry about that! Depending on the cultural and linguistic background of the people that administer the given study program, they will use one of the following expressions for what is called in German “Motivationsschreiben''.

Yes, German Bachelor's degree programs do require Statements of Purpose for application! According to our research, around 80% of Bachelor's programs in Germany require you to submit a motivation letter in order to be considered as a candidate. This includes both English-taught and German-taught study programs. And again, do not forget various wordings that you might come across! Let's have a look at some examples.

• Statement of Purpose (or “Letter of Motivation”) for BA Interdisciplinary American Studies offered by the University of Tübingen

• Statement of Purpose (or “Motivation Letter”) for BA Hotel Management from the University of Europe for Applied Sciences

• Statement of Purpose (or “Motivation Statement) for BA Economics, Politics, and Social Thought from Bard College Berlin

You might be wondering now how vital this document might be for your application, and you are on the right track if you are asking this question! We would like to assure you that a Motivation Letter for an undergraduate program in Germany is indeed quite important. For example, Bard College in Berlin is very straightforward about this issue, stating that the Statement of Purpose is one of the key documents when applying for a Bachelor's program at their University. To be more specific, different Bachelor's study programs usually assign the SOP 10%-30% weight of your total applicant score during the selection process. However, you can also find some exceptions. For example:

• The (German-taught) B.A. Materielle Kultur: Textil program at the University of Oldenburg assigns the Statement of Purpose 40% of the total applicant score, and under certain circumstances, it reaches over 70%! (source)

• The (German-taught) Bachelor Lehramt Grundschule at the Karlsruhe University of Education assigns the Statement of Purpose between 8% and 9% of the total applicant score.

This is a very popular yet very broad question to answer compactly. Hence, let us break it down into five frequent questions that we get at MyGermanUniversity.

In general, German Bachelor's programs do not provide any specific guidelines for writing a Statement of Purpose (intentionally - it’s supposed to be an open-ended task). In fact, sometimes it seems impossible to find any. But do not worry - we did that for you! Our team managed to find some examples, which you can explore in the table below.