Being german, I think it's pretty harsh too.. I developed a little slower in school and just got lucky that the school I was in basically took everyone that pas

Being german, I think it's pretty harsh too.. I developed a little slower in school and just got lucky that the school I was in basically took everyone that passed the grade into the path towards higher education. From my understanding yes your grades matter a lot but it's also up to your parents which school they want to send you to. The development in recent years has been that a larger part of the population is finishing their "Abitur", which is the high school diploma equivilant, allowing them to apply to universities. Often they don't feel like universities are the right place for them though and they apply to apprenticeships, which makes it harder for people who ended school after tenth grade to get apprenticeships. At least in certain fields like lab assistents, IT workers and some others. In other fields such carpentry, plumbers, ... I don't think the Abitur impacts the application process much and can even be seen as a negative.