What the entrance exams actually cap
Numerus clausus in Germany and Austria. PASS and L.AS in France. TOLC-MED in Italy until the reform. Entrance quotas elsewhere.
Each of these sets a number of medical seats and fills them by rank. The number is fixed before the first application arrives.
A cap is arithmetic
A quota decides how many, not who is capable. Once the seats are counted, the ranking decides the rest, and a candidate outside the count is outside the count regardless of what they scored.
That is worth stating plainly because the systems themselves rarely do. A rejection letter reads as a judgement on the applicant. It is a report on the number of seats.
How each system works
Germany and Austria · numerus clausus
Medical places are allocated centrally against a fixed number. The Abitur average, waiting time rules and aptitude tests determine the ranking. The Wartesemester route was abolished in 2020, so waiting no longer improves a position.
France · PASS and L.AS
The first year is a selection year. Students take PASS or a licence with a health option, and a limited number pass into the second year of medicine. Two attempts are permitted.
Italy · TOLC-MED and the semestre filtro
TOLC-MED was replaced from the 2025-26 cycle by an open first semester followed by filtering examinations. The mechanism changed; the cap did not.
Elsewhere
Most European systems ration medical places by some version of the same mechanism, and each publishes its own rules and dates.
Romania admits on the file
At Romanian universities, international admission is based on your diploma and your grades in biology and chemistry. There is no centralised entrance exam of the kind used in Germany or Italy.
Some universities set their own test on certain routes. Vasile Goldiș in Arad holds a multiple-choice admissions examination on 22 September 2026. These are published in advance, with their syllabus.
The difference is not that Romania is easier. It is that the decision is made on a file you can prepare rather than on a number of seats fixed before you applied.
What that means in practice
Medicine is taught in English and in French at Romanian state universities, in Bucharest, Cluj, Iași, Timișoara and Constanța. Those faculties exist because European students have been coming here for decades.
A Romanian medical degree sits inside the EU framework for the automatic recognition of qualifications. Graduates return home and enter the same national licensing procedure a domestic graduate enters.
EU, EEA and Swiss citizens need no student visa at all. Freedom of movement, Directive 2004/38/EC.
The dates that matter this year
Four universities are still open for the 2026 intake, and the first closes on 4 September. Deadlines are published on each university’s admissions page and on our own deadlines page, which counts down to each one.
Send your diploma type and your grades in biology and chemistry.
We check them against what each university publishes and tell you which are open for you. Free, within 48 hours.
An eligibility check is not an admission decision.