Study Abroad Credit
It takes approximately six to eight weeks for study abroad credit to appear on student records from the date the Office of the Registrar receives the foreign transcript and course approvals.
Receiving an Overseas Transcript
It may be several months before the Office of the Registrar receives a transcript from a program or institution abroad after a student has completed their study abroad experience. The timing will vary depending on the program.
To avoid delays, notify the program or institution to send the original transcript directly to the Office of the Registrar at the following address:
Office of the Registrar
ATTN: Stewart Schrof, Academic Records Coordinator
Study Abroad, Graduation and Graduate Support
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
901 W. Illinois St., Suite 140
Urbana, IL 61801-3446
USA
If a student is planning to apply to graduate, medical, or law schools, and/or need official transcripts for such purposes, they must make arrangements with their host institution to have them sent directly to themselves or to the requesting institution. The university will not be able to provide official copies of the international transcript to students or any third party.
How Study Abroad Credit & Grades are Processed
To avoid delays in processing courses, students should review their course approvals upon return to determine if any courses are not already on their Course Approval Summary Form (PDF). If any were not approved, students should complete a Course Approval Summary Form (PDF) for the unapproved courses. Students should send the completed Course Approval Summary Form (PDF) back to the academic college to which they submitted their original form.
Once the transcript is received, the Office of the Registrar will review the transcript and the course approval forms. If there are missing course approval forms, the student's academic college will email them to remind them of the missing course approvals. Once all the course approvals have been received, the Office of the Registrar can move forward with getting the college’s approval so that they can be entered into the Enterprise System.
After receiving the student's transcript and all course approvals, the Office of the Registrar will use the approved Grade and Credit Equivalency scales to convert international credits and grades into university credits and grades. Documents will be sent to the student's college office for approval and a signature and then sent to the Office of the Registrar to be entered on the student's permanent university record.
Foreign university transcripts are part of each students academic record. Every course on the foreign transcript must be processed, even if those courses are not needed a course to satisfy a graduation requirement.
A student's university transcript will list study abroad courses with 388 (ie. BUS 388, HIST 388, ANTH 388). The 388 is not a course level. It only means that the course was taken abroad. A student's college office will enter actual course equivalencies in the student's DARS Audit based upon the information in the course approvals provided.
Transfer Credit for Non-Approved Programs
If students bypass the petition process, enroll, and participate in a non-approved program, students risk their courses and credits not transferring back as approved study abroad credits processed by the Office of the Registrar. Please review information about the Non-Approved Programs for more information.
