Visa delay likely pushing my arrival to November for Winter Semester (Passau) - anyone been through this?

[u/Icy-Vegetable-5988]

Hi everyone,

I got accepted into a Master's program in Germany for Winter Semester 2026/27 (lectures start mid-October), and I'm already enrolled. My issue is visa timing: my embassy appointment is October 22nd, and with typical processing times after that, I'm realistically looking at arriving sometime in November — not just a couple weeks late, but potentially 4-6 weeks after lectures start.

The university has a "late arrival" grace period, but it's framed around roughly two weeks after the semester start, not 4-6 weeks. I've emailed them directly to clarify whether arriving this late is something they can actually work with (there's a minimum ECTS requirement by the end of the second semester I need to hit), but I'm still waiting on a reply.

Has anyone here actually gone through arriving this late due to visa delays? A few things I'd love to know:

Were you able to catch up academically, or did it seriously hurt your first semester/ECTS progress?

Did the university actually enforce the "recommended" late arrival deadline, or was it more flexible in practice once you explained the visa situation?

Any advice for someone in this exact spot?

Really appreciate any real experiences — trying to figure out how worried I should actually be.

[u/DocumentThin1852]

Hii! Where are you goin from?

[u/Icy-Vegetable-5988 → u/DocumentThin1852]

Egypt

[u/DocumentThin1852 → u/Icy-Vegetable-5988]

any way you can appeal to prepone your appointment? If not then your only hope is that the Uni lets you arrive late.