Course Approval Process

When choosing your Education Abroad program, you should first look at your UK degree audit and see what courses you need to take to stay on track for graduation. Then you should use your EA MAP (Major Advising Page) to check out highlighted programs for your major. You can also use the “program search” feature on our homepage. Be sure to consider the availability of courses you need and are interested in to make your decision. Once you've decided what program you think will work for you, it's time to get your courses approved so that you know if you'll be staying on track to graduate. Keep in mind, you can do this over email just as easily (or easier) than in-person.

The Course Approval Process

Once you've chosen an EA program, you should download an Academic Approval Form (AAF) from our website.
Fill out the top section with your personal info and program details.
Go to the program partner's website (not the UK Education Abroad website) and look through the course descriptions being offered.
1. You should have done this at least once before you chose your program, but remember that some courses are only tentative and could change, so have some backups equated too.
Figure out which courses most interest you or seem like they could satisfy your major, minor, or UK Core requirements.
Go to your UK Degree Audit and look through which courses or requirements you need to take.
Compare the UK courses you need to the EA courses that are offered and interest you.
1. Use the UK Course Bulletin (you can google that) to find the course description and get more info to compare it with the EA course. Organizing this in an excel sheet or google doc could be really helpful.
Fill out the second part of your AAF by putting your EA course and the UK course you think it's similar to in each box. If you aren't sure, just fill out the EA course part.
Meet with the designated UK department contact for each class you have on your AAF.
1. This is usually the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) for the department in which you want to receive credit. For example, an EA course titled "History of England before 1900" would require you to meet with the DUS of UK's history department.
2. The name and email of the person you need to talk to will be found on the MAP for that department, or by checking the department's UK website.
3. Most contacts want you to make an appointment with them or attend their office hours.
Before approving the course, the department contact will want to review the EA course description, so have that handy.
Once all of your courses are approved, meet with your Academic Advisor to review and make sure you're on track. There's a line at the bottom of the second page that they'll need to sign.
After all signatures are completed, you can scan or email your AAF to the Education Abroad office (educationabroad@uky.edu) or submit it in hard copy to the Advising Center at 315 Bradley Hall.
We'll upload your AAF to your Education Abroad application and keep it safe until you return!

Academic Approval Forms and Transcripts

Once your program is complete, your host institution or provider will send an official transcript to our office. We'll compare your transcript to the AAF you completed, and then we'll create an official letter that requests that the Registrar's Office apply those international credits to your transcript.

If you don't submit your AAF, you will receive a lower division general elective credit called GEED 1--.

Once the Registrar's Office reviews the letter we send them, along with your transcript and AAF, they will add the courses to your UK transcript as transfer credit. This process can take some time, so please be patient.

For more info, check out our section on Academic Credit Types.

Are you doing an internship, research, or service learning program?

If so, credit for your program should be figured out before you leave for your program. Usually this will be in the form of experiential credit. You can receive this credit from some individual departments or through the Stuckert Career Center as EXP credit. You can learn more about this by visiting the Career Center website.

Remember, this has to be arranged before you depart!