Excately what is done in Germany. In the engineering fields, people are admitted left and right (often over thousand per subject) and then they make the first s

Excately what is done in Germany. In the engineering fields, people are admitted left and right (often over thousand per subject) and then they make the first semester exams so hard that only about a third pass. There is this famous thing professors say to engineering students in the first lecture: "Everyone please look to your right and to your left. [Statistically speaking] only one of you will be able to graduate in the end." This is why engineering schools are so tough. I heard from some american universities that the master programs are (if you have gotten over the hurdle to get in) rather "easy" and that they want people to have good grades (because it would look bad if top university students have really bad grades I guess?). Whereas in Germany you have to survive. And especially the good university make it as hard as they can to get the cream of the crop. (Part of this is related to the change from Diploma to Bachelor/Master because for the Diploma people did not have to care about grades and Universities made exams so hard that people would barely pass them: "4 gewinnt").